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.
The morning after our last video games club – December 30th, 2011 – my husband turned on our Xbox to download some games for the next video game club. We purchased some awesomely on sale points over Christmas, and we thought it was time for a shopping spree. He couldn’t get into our account. He...
There are many things we can call emulsifiers for our products, but when you’re making a lotion or other emulsified product, what you probably want is an emulsification system, which generally consists of at least two ingredients – a low HLB emulsifier like glycol distearate or glycol stearate and a high HLB emulsifier like ceteareth-20...
I regularly get e-mails from readers who have read somewhere or have been told by someone that they can use essential oils to preserve products, so I thought I’d address this question – if our essential oils have anti-microbial properties, why can’t we use them to preserve our products? Because they aren’t very good anti-microbials...
Quite a few people have written to me recently to ask about hair butters, and I did a little research into the topic. I’ve never heard of a hair butter before – remember, I haven’t bought commercial hair care products in years, so I have no reason to go into those sections of stores! –...
If you’re interested in joining on the fun with next week’s body butter project, click here to learn more about the supplies you’ll need. If you made last week’s lotion, then you have what you need! BASIC BODY BUTTER RECIPEHEATED WATER PHASE59% water2% sodium lactate HEATED OIL PHASE10% oils15% butter3% cetyl alcohol7% Polawax (e-wax) COOL...