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.
Niacinamide (aka Vitamin B3 or nicotinic acid) is an absolutely fascinating cosmeceutical and one that has a lot of science to back up the claims! It’s a water soluble vitamin that can be found as a powder we add to the heated water phase of our products. So what can this amazing vitamin do? The...
As I mentioned, I feel like I’ve tweaked moisturizers to death, so here are a few ideas for ingredients you can include in your products. I can’t stress enough the idea of making a basic moisturizer then adding ingredients once you see if your skin likes it – give it a week before deciding, unless...
The first place to start to formulate a good moisturizer is to choose a recipe. We’ll start with this very basic recipe and tweak it until we get something we like! I suggest starting with a basic recipe and seeing how your skin reacts to it before adding all those lovely (and expensive) cosmeceuticals. It...
Beeswax is not an emulsifier. We can use it as a thickener in our products – in lotions, scrub bars, lotion bars, and so on – but it will not emulsify your lotions. I know I’ve mentioned this before – in the how can I tell if it’s a good recipe post – but the...
I mentioned the other day that I find moisturizers the hardest product to create, and I should start off by justifying this comment. They aren’t hard products to make – the process is the same as any lotion with the heated water phase, heated oil phase, heat and hold, cool down phase, and mixing –...