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 time to go swimming – but what about chlorine in the pool? Read this great post from the BeautyBrains to learn more about how chlorine affects your hair! (I either go swimming in natural bodies of water – I love lakes! – or use a swimming cap. It’s one of those ones from the...
There are two ways to make water soluble oils – you can mix an oil with an emulsifier (usually polysorbate 80) to make an oil water soluble or you can esterify them (okay, you can’t personally esterify them as you probably don’t have the equipment at home, but oils can be esterified to make them...
I just learned the most interesting thing from Liz at the Dish and I have to share it! Have you ever considered whether you should pour the water into the oil or the oil into the water when you’re making lotions? I usually add the water to the oil because the water phase is always...
Yes, Crothix is an ester – in fact, it’s a complex ester! The INCI is PEG-150 pentaerythrityl tetrastearate (and) PEG-6 caprylic/capric trigylcerides (and) water. It’s derived from and composed mostly of stearic acid. It’s non-ionic and it will create clear thickened surfactant systems, as opposed to the pearlized systems created with the EZ Pearl (yesterday’s...
Esters are well known to be efficient thickeners. You’ll have encountered a few on your bath and body adventures – glycol stearate, glycol distearate (or EZ Pearl), Crothix – when making surfactant systems or looking for options for emulsifiers. (Crothix isn’t an emulsifier, the others are!) These are all PEG esters or polyethylene glycol based...