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.
So what the heck is an ester and how or why would I want to use them in our bath and body creations? An ester is a molecule that has undergone esterification. (Wow, that was clear, eh?) Esterification is a chemical reaction – for our purposes between a carboxylic acid (like a fatty acid from...
You’ve been looking forward to having the house to yourself for a few hours on Saturday morning, and the workshop beckons! ARGH! I’m out of something essential (for me, it’s usually aloe vera). Substitution to the rescue! I have BTMS-25 not BTMS-50 and I want to make a liquid conditioner! BTMS is INCI Name: Behentrimonium...
As I mentioned in the first gel post, carbomers and surfactants don’t tend to play well together. But we’re going to force them to be the bestest of friends by choosing our surfactants wisely and putting the ingredients together in the proper order. I made up this formula – the Gardener’s Hand Scrub – for...
Adding aloe vera to gels can be tricky because gels don’t tend to like ingredients filled with lovely salts and electrolytes. We like a good challenge, so let’s figure out how to make an aloe vera gel with cationic polymers and moisturizers! For the aloe vera gel, we’d ideally like a ton of aloe vera...
I love making gels – they aren’t hard to create and they have so many uses. There are a few ways to make gels – with a polymer like Ultrez 20 or with cellulose – but I’m going to concentrate on the polymer method as I haven’t had a chance to play with cellulose yet...