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.
A little bit more chemistry for a lovely December morning! The iodine value of an oil or butter is a measure of the saturation of the fatty acids. As we go up on the iodine value scale, we’ll see more double bonds or more unsaturation in the oils. Something like coconut oil, which has a high degree...
The recent cold snap we’ve been enjoying in southwestern B.C. had me thinking a lot about the effects of cold on our products, especially given that most of the ingredients in my workshop have either frozen or become so cold they won’t pour out of the bottles. I got to thinking about why oils cloud...
p wrote this really great comment in this post (it’s really long, so I’d encourage you to read the entire thing in the post as I’m editing it slightly for space): I’m in the minority here, leaving my sugar scrubs unpreserved…My reasoning is that any water introduced to the product will dissolve sugar until it reaches...
In this post, Sarah asks: One thing I’d like to know is the specifics as to why we preserve anhydrous sugar and salt scrubs – I’ve had so many discussions with regards this (I say we should, to be safe) and would like it clarified if poss.! I know you’ve touched on it before but could...
I’ve written about polyquat 7 and honeyquat before, but let’s take a look at those polyquaternium ingredients along with a few others! So what is a cationic polymer? A polymer is “Any of numerous natural and synthetic compounds of usually high molecular weight consisting of up to millions of repeated linked units, each a relatively...