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.
In yesterday’s post, we took a look at how we might use alcohol in a lotion. In today’s post, I thought I’d shared a few ways you could incorporate ethanol into your products. If you want to make something pH balanced for our skin, I know you can use Aristoflex AVC to make 50% ethanol gels. In...
You know I can’t leave well enough alone, so I thought I’d take yesterday’s Emulthix recipe and add some of my favourite ingredients to take it from great to fan-freakin’-tastic! Want to know more about Emulthix? Cick here! Let’s alter my heated water phase first. I’m adding a humectant – sodium lactate – along with...
Yesterday, we said “hello!” to Emulthix, a cold process emulsifier that can handle quite high levels of oils. I thought I’d try making a basic lotion with only one oil – pumpkin seed oil, one of my favourites – and see what I thought of the viscosity! EMULTHIX LOTION WITH PUMPKIN SEED OILOIL PHASE20% pumpkin...
In this post, if you’re new to lotion making, Ann asks: I have made a couple of lotions, each time increasing the water content to try and make them more runny. My last batch was 80% water and it is still quite solid. I was wondering if it is due to the mixing stage. How...
In this post, Pumpkin seed: Making a light lotion, Anamaria asked, I would like to know if I could ever make this same lotion adding magnesium chloride oil? Would it survive to the heat? Thanks Magnesium oil isn’t an oil. It’s a solution of water and magnesium flakes, so it’s a water soluble ingredient, not an...