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.
It really doesn’t feel like we’re only three weeks away from summer here in southwestern B.C. – we’re getting rained on constantly, the temperature is in the mid-teens ˚C, and we’re still waiting for strawberry season – but I can still prepare for the horrible heat…I mean, loveliness…of summer. So I thought I’d put together...
Yep, shampoo bars are a great way to make a 2-in-1 kind of product. We can incorporate the really serious conditioning compounds into a shampoo bar and they won’t end up as a gooey mess in our bottle! These are great for all hair types as they are easily tweakable, and you can add all...
Yep, it’s that time of year again (at least in the Northern Hemisphere)! It’s time to buy buckets of sunscreen and make sure Mr. Sun doesn’t make us all red and unhappy! We definitely need to be wearing sunscreen!There are two types of sunscreen ingredients – physical blockers and chemical blockers. The physical blockers are titanium...
If you’re a dry haired girl, a 2-in-1 shampoo is probably a bad idea. It simply won’t offer all the conditioning and moisturizing you want in a product and might make your hair feel really awful. But it’s not for me to judge what is right for your hair, so here’s a modification to the...
Anonymous posted this question in this post: What’s the difference between polysorbate 80 & 20? Polysorbates are ethoxylates of fatty acids esterified with anhydrosorbitol. Polysorbate 20 is a polyoxyethylene derivative of sorbitan monolaurate whereas polysorbate 80 is a polyoxyethylene derivative of sorbitan and oleic acid. And as much as I love chemistry, I realize this really...