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.
Here’s a little chemistry to start your day! Let’s take a look at colloids, hydrocolloids, and shear thinning. What is a colloid? A colloid is “a substance microscopically dispersed evenly through another substance.” It can be a gas, solid or liquid. It consists of two phases – the dispersed or internal phase and the continuous...
As people refer me to things they consider to be natural products, I keep seeing the words “coconut derived” beside surfactants, fatty alcohols, fatty acids, and other ingredients that are, in fact, coconut derived. But what does this mean? Coconut oil is often the starting point for surfactants because it has a fatty acid profile...
Today marks the beginning of the International Year of Chemistry, as declared by UNESCO and IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry). This year we’ll celebrate chemistry and how it has improved the lot of humankind under the theme of “Chemistry – our life, our future”. 2011 was chosen as it has been 100...
In some recipes, you’ll see the addition of citric acid or sodium hydroxide (lye) at the end to alter the pH of the product. Ideally, our products will be between 4.5 and 7 (there are few products that fall outside these areas, like cold processed soap and some moisturizers with AHAs), and the citric acid...
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...