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.
I had this great idea last night, but I don’t have time to write it properly this morning and it’s coming out as a jumbled mess (I hope to have it written for tomorrow morning, but it could be Friday), so I thought I’d dip into the comments and e-mails I’ve seen this week and...
I’m coming to the end of the cosmeceutical series in the next week or so and wondered what you’d like to see next. Do you want to see more formulating ideas on how to use them? Do you want to see more from the learning to formulate series so you can make your own lotions?...
I haven’t had much time to research and write up posts on cosmeceuticals, so I thought I’d dip into the old mail bag and take a look at the questions and comments I’ve seen this week… From Aesthete (in this post): I don’t have sodium hydroxide, is there something else I can use to increase...
Papi asked this question: I have a question, if we heat oils (like grapeseed) at 70˚C won’t it get rancid? And maybe we ruin some of its properties too (like evening primrose oil) or the 70˚C is the safe temperature? This is a good question because the last thing we want is to have rancid...
I’m asked all the time about using honey as a humectant in our products. Is it possible? Honey is a good humectant, which is why we want to use it in our products, but this is also where we run into problems. Honey is self-preserving – to a certain extent – when there’s no water...