The home of SwiftCraftyMonkey Formulating Inc.! Join Susan as she obsesses about cosmetic chemistry and other things (some possibly related to monkeys). Often strange, occasionally useful, and always worth a stop as a point of interest on your journey through the Intertron.
Some people would have you believe that everything can penetrate the upper layers of your skin – the epidermis – and make it into your bloodstream, creating all kinds of problems and “poisoning us from the inside out”. They will argue that nicotine and estrogen patches prove their case that things that go on our...
Aquaglyceroporins are “membrane proteins that form water channels over cell membranes. They faciliate transport of water and solutes like glycerol or urea.” (This document, p. 78) In other words, aquaporins regulate the water flux in our skin (specifically in our epidermis, or outer layer of our skin). They are embedded in our cell membranes to help...
I’ve updated this post with interesting things I’ve learned in the past two years. The original post can be found here. Your skin is composed of three layers – the epidermis, the dermis, and the hypodermis or subcutis. Our main focus will be the epidermis or the outer layer of our skin. I find it interesting...
I’m still on a quest to figure out the answer to this question…so let’s review information I’ve found so far. What is a humectant? “Humectancy or hygroscopy is the tendency of a substance to attract water from the surroundings by absorption and adsorption at defined conditions (temperature, humidity).” (page 26, this review). Is glycerin a...
What are electrolytes? (And are they really what plants crave?) “An electrolyte is any substance containing free ions that make the substance electrically conductive. The most typical electrolyte is an ionic solution, but molten electrolytes and solid electrolytes are also possible. Commonly, electrolytes are solutions of acids, bases or salts.” (From Wikipedia). In other words, when you...