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.
Pumpkin seed oil – INCI Curcubita pepo (pumpkin) seed oil – is a high linoleic acid oil with 12 to 18% palmitic acid (C16), 5 to 8% stearic acid (C18), 24 to 41% oleic acid (C18:1), and 18 to 62% linoleic acid (C18:2), with an average of 50% or so.Pumpkin seed oil contains tocopherols, but...
Rosehip oil (INCI: Rosa canina (Rosehip) Fruit Oil) is what I’d call an exotic oil, something you don’t use as the main base of a lotion or other creation but as a wonderful addition. Its fatty acid composition is interesting – 3.8% palmitic acid (C16), 1.9% stearic acid (C18), 15% oleic acid (C18:1), 43.5% linoleic...
It’s hard to find a standard fatty acid profile for wheat germ oil (INCI Triticum aestivum oil or Tricium vulgare oil) as it depends upon the strain of wheat, the climate in which it is grown, and so on. A general profile looks something like this – with a fatty acid profile – 1 to...
Winter is not a great time for our skin! The cold and wind certainly don’t make for soft, moisturized skin, and the low humidity is incredibly drying (although awesome for making my frizzy hair straight and smooth!). I like to make a moisturizer just for the winter months filled with all kinds of wonderful ingredients...
I realized I hadn’t offered many ideas lately about how to formulate with some of the more recent oils I’ve written about, so here are a few recipes I hope you’ll enjoy! Zinc oxide cream is intended to create a barrier between the outside world and the damaged skin, so we want something that is...