Welcome to the home of SwiftCraftyMonkey Formulating Inc.! Join Susan as she obsesses about cosmetic chemistry and other things (some possibly related to monkeys)! Here you’ll find over 5,000 posts and formulas written over the past 16 years for everything from lotions, creams, and body butters to hair care products to fancy facial products filled with actives and cosmeceuticals! Enjoy the site without distractions – no ads, pop ups, sponsored posts, affiliate links, “one weird tricks” – all supported by readers like you.
Susan Barclay-Nichols One of the first recipes I posted when I started this blog was a detailed post about toners. I’ve learned a lot since then, so let’s update that recipe with all the stuff we’ve learned about hydrosols, extracts, water soluble oils, and so on! For a toner, you will want to stick to all...
So you’ve read all the posts on skin types, and you’ve figured out what you are…how do you put it into action? Look at the goals of each skin type and the suggested ingredients, then figure out what would work best as a starting point for your formulations. As a note, I’m finding that what’s...
There’s not much to say about the tight or T skin type. You have no wrinkles and no sagging, and we all envy you. So let’s focus on the wrinkled or W skin type. How do we define aging skin? It is skin that has… dermal and epidermal atrophy (sagging, wrinkling, coarseness) reduction in amount...
From an anonymous commentor comes this question…I read the following from your pdf on conditioners: The main conditioning agent in BTMS (behentrimonium methosulfate) is a cationic quaternary ammonium salt derived from rapeseed oil (the plant for canola oil).My questions are: Any of the shampoos that have ammonium sulfates in them totally wreck my hair. I...
What is sun protection factor or SPF? How is it defined? SPF is defined as… the dose of UV radiation required to produce 1 minimal erythema dose (MED) on protected skin after the application of 2 mg/cm2 of produce divided by the UV radiation to produce 1 MED on unprotected skin. In other words, it’s...