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’s a snow day! The schools, my husband’s university, and my work are all closed today thanks to the almost 30 cm or 12 inches of snow we’ve had fall in the last 11 hours. The roads are treacherous and it’s too dangerous to go out today. So SNOW DAY! (And tomorrow’s going to be...
Okay, so we know all about saponins – from yesterday’s post – so let’s take a look at sapogenins and how they differ. If you’ll recall from yesterday, a saponin contains two parts – the glycone, which is the sugar part, and the aglycone, which is the non-sugar part. When a saponin undergoes hydrolysis, the...
With all this talk about natural emulsifiers and surfactants, I thought we’d get into a little chemistry about sapogenins and saponins! Saponins are steroid or triterpenoid glycosides that have amphiphilic or amphipathic features. They are grouped together by having “soap like foaming qualities they produce in aqueous solutions” – in other words, when you put...
So what the heck are terpenes? We see them mentioned a lot in information about essential oils, but what are they and do they benefit us as bath and body formulators in any way? Terpenes are organic compounds, the major building blocks within nearly every living creature. For instance, steroids are derivatives of the triterpene...
As I mentioned, my lovely husband and mother bought me a pH meter for Christmas. It’s a Jenco Vision Plus and it’s quite fancy as it can store up to 50 readings, take temperatures, and many more features I have yet to try! It even comes with a handy dandy belt hook so I can...