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.
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...
I love the love so much, I wanted to share with you this massage oil that’s super easy to make and can be customized to include what’s in your workshop! You could put this in a bottle with a treatment pump or another cap, but I like to make these in roller bottles to make...
On February 11, we took a look at ways to thicken oils that won’t be greasy. Today, let’s look at a few other ways to thicken oils! A few years ago – holy cow, was that in 2010? – I did some experiments thickening oils with cetyl alcohol, stearic acid, cetearyl alcohol, and complicated with...