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.
In this post, Anonymous asks: Hi Susan, I have a question about glycerin. I have read that it can act as a preservative, but the amounts I’ve read where it’s effective have been anything from 15-70%. I was wondering if I make a simple glycerin-water spray, with about 20% glycerin, if I need preservative or if...
In this post, Nedeia asks: I LOVE humectants. I always use glycerin, sodium lactate, panthenol, urea, Na PCA, oats and wheat proteins, I just LOVE them in my products! But I guess I tend to over use them, because sometimes the gels I am using all of them into is sticky. I always use less than...
Honey is a good humectant, so it might be a good addition for our products…but I would want to heat and hold it to get rid of any possible spores, and we know that subjecting honey to heat and/or light can break it down, so will it behave as a good humectant while in our...
One of the things I see constantly about honey is that it is an anti-microbial, so let’s take a look at the evidence for this concept. There are three features of honey that have been studied extensively for anti-bacterial properties – high osmolarity, acidity, and hydrogen peroxide production. This study found there were two phenolic...
I am asked all the time what I think about using honey as a humectant in our products, so I thought I should do a little research into this ingredient. So what’s the deal with honey? If you want to know about how bees process it and stuff, I really recommend reading the Wikipedia entry...