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.
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...
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...