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 was leafing through my lab notebook today, and I came across these essential oil blends I made up some time in 2016 to smell a bit like the Peppermint Halo Headache Remedy by Saje. It seems like I need to use this one a lot lately… Their product, which is $29 for 10 ml!, contains peppermint...
I know it seems like they may be magical with all their wonderful qualities, but you can treat them as you would other ingredients. For instance, don’t measure them in drops. How do you know how much you’re using? Measure them by weight like you would any other ingredient. Check the suggested usage rate and...
A tip for the day: If you don’t have all the ingredients for a product on the blog, try searching for another recipe for that product. For instance, if you want to make a toner but don’t have the extract I mention, try searching for another toner recipe to see if there’s one that doesn’t...
In this post – Heating, holding, freezing, and thawing our oils – Lexi asks: It’s summer so time to break out the insect repellents. I want to make my own insect repellent lotion based on essential oils (e.g. lavender, eucalyptus, citronella). My product is 8% essential oils. I know you said that we are not...
HLB VALUE OF BUTYLENE GLYCOL?In this post, Humectants: Propylene glycol & dipropylene glycol, Tyler asks: What is the HLB value of butylene glycol? Butylene glycol doesn’t have an HLB value because it isn’t oil soluble. HLB values are assigned to emulsifiers and oil soluble ingredients. Since butylene glycol is water soluble and doesn’t need an emulsifier...