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.
A tale of two body washes. Same formula, different fragrance oils. On the left, pistachio cream: On the right, sweet Meyer lemon. This isn’t a testament to the quality of the ingredients or fragrance/essential oils – this can happen with any mix you create. Working with surfactants isn’t as easy as just changing the fragrance...
In the September Q&A, Charlette asked, Sorry, but have another question. With our recent use of so many different cold process emulsifiers–although I know we all use good production practices–are we giving up some preservation and ‘kill the beasties’ benefits which the heat-and hold process gives us? Don’t get me wrong! I’m loving the ease … Read more
Jen from Lotioncrafter was kind enough to send me some sodium phytate to play with over the summer. Sodium phytate is a water soluble chelating ingredient we can add to our products at 0.05% to 0.5% to bind with metal ions to keep the ingredients from reacting with them. These metal ions can precipitate in...
Another beaker broken during the grand oil thickening experiments! I don’t know what it is about high shear + clay based thickeners, but if this keeps up, I’ll have to order the 100 and 150 ml by the caseload! Oh well, it’s all in the name of figuring out how we can use these ingredients...
In the March Q&A, Olja asked, My question is about NAG (N-acetyl glucosamine). To which phase do you put it. If you put it to the cool down phase, do you dissolve it prior? Can you dissolve it in a glicerite extract (which also contains some water) and than put it in the lotion? Moreover, if using...