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’ve been formulating since 2006 and writing this blog since 2009, and fragrance oils have changed a lot during that time, becoming much, much stronger, so we need to use far less. Products into which I would have used 1% are now a bit strong at 0.3%. – so my recommendations are to use 0.1%...
When we’re looking at INCI names, you’ll see things like stearate, palmitate, cocoate, and more. What do these names mean? When an ingredient is derived from fatty acids, you’ll see a name like sodium stearate or ethylhexyl palmitate indicating which one they’ve used. If you see laur- in a name, it means it’s derived from lauric...
In my formulas, you might see me say something like – use 10% hydrosol in place of 10% distilled water – or – use 0.5% powdered extract in the cool down phase, remove 0.5% distilled water – and I thought maybe I should explain that a bit? Our formulas should always total 100%. There are...
I realized I haven’t shared much about testing our products – a great question that came up in the live Zoom meeting about oils yesterday – so I thought I’d share my experiences with one of my favourite lotions for shelf life. Whenever I make a product, I like to observe it for 6 months...
I’m seeing a lot of people trying to use powdered surfactants in liquid products – like shower gels, body washes, bubble baths – and although I hate to be the bearer of bad news, this isn’t a stable or easy way to use them. These will start to solidify, leaving you with a bottle of...