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.
Welcome back to another instalment of tips & techniques! I thought I should create a separate and updated post on this topic because I see people going through all the work to test and alter pH for emulsions that are just fine on their own. As you’ll see, most emulsifiers are designed to create formulas...
A quick tip for you: You don’t need to clean your packaging before you use it. Putting your bottles and jars into a dishwasher before you use them for products can introduce contamination. Using dishwashing soap and a bottle cleaner can leave residue. There may be water in places you don’t expect and that can...
There’s this weird idea out there in the DIY world that we can’t easily melt ingredients that contain behentrimonium methosulfate (BTMS), found in Incroquat BTMS-50, Incroquat BTMS-25, Rita BTMS-225, and many BTMS emulsifiers, in a double boiler. It seems that no matter how times I demonstrate it in a class or Zoom meeting or post,...
This is a long post that didn’t have a logical place to make cuts, so rather than spend time re-writing it, here’s a few days of posts in one! For a while now, I’ve shared charts with you so you can make substitutions for the preservatives that you have in your workshop if you can’t...
There may be restrictions on certain preservatives in your part of the world, something to keep in mind when you’re following formulas or creating new ones. I do my best to keep up to date on these things, but I can’t possibly know every single restriction outside of Canada or the USA because I only...