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.
So you like your moisturizer, but you want those extra fancy ingredients to treat specific issues you might have…so what to do?There are literally thousands of ingredients you can add in small amounts to your moisturizers, and, as much as I’d like to, I can’t spend the rest of my natural life reviewing them (hey,...
Yeah, I know, once you find a moisturizer you like, it’s really hard to try a new one. I was forced to make my own after my favourite decided to change an ingredient and my acne prone skin broke out like silly! So what is the difference between a light lotion and a moisturizer? The...
We’ve made a regular lotion (about 70% water) and we’ve made a thick cream (about 60% water), so let’s take a look at light lotions. They are great for body and face – you might call them a moisturizing milk or a facial moisturizer. They’re fine for bottling in non-pump bottles as they are quite...
I don’t tend to take pictures of lotions – surfactant creations are much prettier! – but this is an example of a little kit you could put together of your body butter, scrub and, and bath salts. Plus, I was getting tired of not having pictures on the site! So you’ve made your first...
So far we’ve been making basic lotions, tweaking the ratios of the various ingredients to get what we want, but there are other ingredients you can add to lotions that will change the thickness, texture, and glidi-ness (yes, I know this isn’t a word, but it fits!) I’m making up a short list here that...