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.
Catch up on this series: Part one, the chemistry and nomenclature of esters; part two, types of esters and their sensory characteristics; and part three, chemistry of the sensory characteristics. Esters are created when an alcohol and an acid react. In the case of simple esters, this is when a fatty alcohol and a fatty...
Catch up on this series: Part one, the chemistry and nomenclature of esters, and part two, types of esters and their sensory characteristics. There are quite a few factors that contribute to the functionality of the ester, that is to say these factors contribute to the viscosity, skin feel, melting point, liquidity, surface tension, and...
Thanks for joining me for part two of this series on esters. Yesterday, we looked at the chemistry and nomenclature of esters. Today, let’s take a look at why we might use esters in our products, and what they bring to the party. We use esters for all kinds of reasons – as emulsifiers, as...
You might remember our series to figure out what a polar oil might be – part one, hydrocarbons and part two, polar oils – as we struggled to make that darned TKB Thickening clay work. This was supposed to be part three at the time, but we went on holiday and the computer died and...
When we were at Windy Point Soap Making Supplies two weeks ago, we had great fun testing the pH of various Lush products, including three shampoo bars – Jumping Juniper, Montalbano, and Trichomania – as well as two “self-preserving” shower gels, Honey I Washed the Kids and The Olive Branch. Let’s take a look at...