The home of SwiftCraftyMonkey Formulating Inc.! Join Susan as she obsesses about cosmetic chemistry and other things (some possibly related to monkeys). Often strange, occasionally useful, and always worth a stop as a point of interest on your journey through the Intertron.
I’ve been on a bit of a butter buying spree over the past 18 months, trying new ones like cupuacu butter (E-zine: Shiny things, volume 1 and Emollients you will love) and working with old favourites like sal butter (E-zine: Shiny Things, volume 2 and Emollients you will love) and kokum butter (E-zine: Emollients you...
I was fiddling around with a basic cosmetic certification test from a guild, and again and again these two oils showed up as part of a lotion bar, body melt, and lip balm. These aren’t oils I’ve encountered as a bath & body product maker, but I know both are used quite a lot in...
The horrible recipe from HGTV we saw yesterday used fresh cucumber juice as the water phase, which is a really terrible idea. If you want to incorporate all the awesome power of cucumber in a formula, consider trying cucumber seed oil. Cucumber seed oil (INCI: Cucumis Sativus (Cucumber) Oil) is cold pressed and smells absolutely...
In the April Q&A, Laura asked: I’m wondering if there is a recipe on the site anywhere for a dry oil spray or if it’s simply Cyclomethicone with some fragrance oil in it? I did try searching but my words ‘dry oil’ only turn up things for dry skin, I can’t find an actual recipe so...
We met this ingredient a few years ago, but I didn’t go into much detail, which is kind of weird as I often go into too much detail. Let’s take another look at coco caprylate.. Coco caprylate is an ester of “coconut alcohol, caprylic, and capric acid”, in other words, a fatty alcohol derived from coconuts...