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.
Every time I write a recipe with more or less than 25% of the oil phase in emulsifier, someone writes to me to correct me. I appreciate it when I’m working with Polawax, but this isn’t applicable to any other emulsifier out there. (Click here for the post on how much Polawax to use!) The...
So how do we use the HLB system to create an emulsifier? Click here for a great PDF with all the required HLB values of our oil phase ingredients and the HLB values of our potential emulsifiers. You will need to refer to this to play along! The steps to finding out the HLB value...
Merilyn e-mailed me to ask…I wonder if you can help me with this body butter. I whip butter after butter and I just can’t seem to get the same just whipped spreadable consistency…The specific item is called ‘ORGANIC Body Rich Body Butter’, it’s 81% certified Organic. It says it “Deeply nourishes hydrates and protects with Shea...
If you want to formulate your own products – whether they’re duplicates or something you’ve cooked up in your head – you need to know INCI names so you can figure out what ingredient is what. The common name for an ingredient – evening primrose oil – is not the same as the INCI name...
I’ll be getting back to duplicating products in a few days, but I thought this was a really important topic for learning how to formulate and duplicate! Will commented in this post…I use liquid germall plus in my own concoctions and haven’t noticed anything go bad, but I typically use a batch of lotion within...