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.
A tip for the day: If you don’t have all the ingredients for a product on the blog, try searching for another recipe for that product. For instance, if you want to make a toner but don’t have the extract I mention, try searching for another toner recipe to see if there’s one that doesn’t...
In this post on solubilizers, someone asked: I still don’t get the difference between a solubilizer and a emulsifier. If I mix propylene glycol (in substitution for the surfactant), cetyl alcohol or stearic acid in water, will I be getting a lotion? The quick answer is no because there’s nothing in your question that is...
I spent last week testing PEG-40 hydrogenated castor oil, and I thought I’d share my initial thoughts and compare it to some of the other solubilizers you might use. If you want to see what I’m referring to, click on one of these posts… Ingredient: PEG-40 hydrogenated castor oil My method for testing Part 1:...
I’ve been experimenting with PEG-40 hydrogenated castor oil and my fragrance oils. We took a look at the methods I’m using to test this ingredient, and I’ve reported my results with black amber lavender and Clementine cupcake fragrance oils already. What happens when I use Yuzu fragrance oil and peppermint essential oil with this solubilizer?...
In this Saturday’s Weekend Wonderings, we discussed molarity and % w/v (weight/volume), but let’s get into a little more detail. In chemistry, what is a mole? A mole is how much 6.02 x 10(23) atoms weighs. (The 23 is to the power of as in 10(2) is 10 x 10. So 10(23) is 10 x 10...