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.
Mich writes to ask: A lot of shampoos and conditioners are labeled “safe for color-treated hair”. What makes them color safe? Are there ingredients that make color fade faster which those of us with colored hair should avoid? Or is it just marketing? The colour on our hair fades in a few different ways – from...
How do we modify a conditioning shampoo to be more suitable for oily hair? What’s the goal for an oily hair shampoo? To remove the sebum and other stuff in your hair without stripping it. We could use some really harsh detergents to accomplish this goal – SLS, for instance – but this will only...
As per the comment on this post, here are some expanded instructions on how to make shampoo. (I’m expanding on this post – instructions for making shampoo – so I might repeat myself here.) Instructions for making a heated surfactant mix (this applies to all surfactant based products, including facial cleansers, body washes, bubble baths, and shampoos)....
Laura posed this question: I would also be very interested to know what happens to the hair when we treat it with an oil mask for a few hours or even overnight and then wash the oil away with a shampoo. If the oil does not penetrate the hair cuticle, is there any benefit from this...
What makes a conditioning shampoo conditioning? The conditioners, of course! A shampoo without conditioners is called a clarifying shampoo and it’s intended to remove styling products (although I used it when my hair was extremely oily as they don’t tend to contain moisturizers, either). The shampoo we made yesterday would be considered a clarifying shampoo...