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.
Resveratrol is a “polyphenolic phytoalexin” that certain plants use as a defence against bacteria and fungi. The main way we see this in our bath and body products without being a pure version of it is in grapeseed extract. It is claimed to be a good anti-oxidant and free radical scavenger, but might also offer...
GABA (aka gamma aminobutryic acid or 4-aminobutanoic acid) is a “multifunctional ceullar stimulant”. It is claimed that it is anti-inflammatory ingredient. But these aren’t why we want to use it in our facial products. The main claims about this cosmeceutical is that relaxes muscles when topically applied which will smooth and reduce the look of...
I’ve been reviewing the questions and comments you’ve written since the start of the moisturizer section of the learning to formulate series, and one of the most common relates to how to turn our facial lotions into sunscreens. This makes sense to me because one of the best ways to avoid the look of aging...
DMAE (also known as dimethylaminoethanol and 2-(Dimethylamino)ethanol comes as a water soluble, white crystalline powder we can use in our products at 1.5% to 3% in the cool down phase. It has a pH of 10, and doesn’t play well with acidic ingredients. So what’s claimed about DMAE? It’s claimed that it can reduce skin sagging and...
I wrote about MSM on February 25, 2010, but I thought I’d do an update. The new information is in italic! MSM (aka DSMO2, methylsulfone, methylsulfonylmethane, and dimethyl sulfone) is an ingredient that we see in various moisturizers, but what does it do? Sulphur (or sulfur) is an element found in every cell of our...