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.
What if you want to increase your oil phase further? You have two choices – you can choose another recipe that has a higher oil phase and a lower water phase or you can modify your recipe to increase the oils and emulsifier. Let’s say we take the recipe from the other day, the less...
While making our basic lotion the other day, we had a decision to make. Do we substitute 2% IPM for one of the oils or do we add it to the oil phase as an extra 2%? We addressed the substitution issue on Friday, so let’s take a look at increasing your oil phase today. ...
Will and Patrick did the most important thing you can do in learning this thing we call cosmetic chemistry – they stayed curious – and both went out to the dollar store to buy lotions. Let’s take a look at what each of them found! (And be warned, this is a long post!) Will: I made...
I know most people, if asked, will say they prefer a drier feeling lotion, but a lot of those perceptions are based upon commercial products that contain mostly mineral oil. Most of our vegetable oils feel less greasy than mineral oil, and all of our esters definitely feel that way. So here are a few...
Another week, another Iron Chemist challenge!. I love rice bran oil and use it by the bucketload in so many products I make, so it was hard to create two products in which I could use it in a different way. I chose to add to the challenge this week and attempt to duplicate two products...