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.
You put what in my ice cream? When deciding what ingredients to use, always consider the source of your information. You can see from the post on “all natural”, that often times these things are opinion, not fact, based. I like to consider the studies I’m reading before making up my mind on safety. An...
So let’s play with some Hydrovance. I’m including it in a few recipes to take the place of other humectants, specifically the summer cooling spray and apres sun spray because sodium lactate might make us sun sensitive. (Although I still include sodium lactate because I love the fact it’s in my skin naturally!) LAVENDER &...
Hydrovance by National Starch (INCI: hydroxyethyl urea) is a moisturizing agent that can be added to your lotions and water based products at 1 to 20%. It’s hygroscopic, meaning it draws water from the atmosphere (to your skin), so we treat it as a humectant. (In studies conducted by the company, Hydrovance absorbed 82% of...
Isn’t it beautiful? This is the polyquat 7 molecule. The N+ group is what makes this a cationic – the nitrogen makes all the difference! Polyquat 7 (or Condition-eze 7, as the ISP product is known) is a cationic quaternary polymer that can be used in hair care and body care products to impart conditioning...
Honeyquat was made for hair care products – literally! – so including it in a conditioner is a wonderful and good thing. It offers good wet combing and conditioning, and helps with anti-static control. Let’s take a look at a conditioner we made in the conditioning post…. OILY HAIR CONDITIONER – defrizzing, conditioning, moisturizing without...