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.
Pomegranate oil is a new one we’re seeing on our suppliers’ shelves, but what does it offer over other oils? Pomegranate oil has an interesting fatty acid profile – 2% palmitic acid (C16), 1.3 to 2% stearic acid (C18), 5.7% oleic acid (C18:1), 7% linoleic acid (C18:2), 70 to 76% punicic acid (C18:3, n-5), and...
Much like our friend evening primrose oil, borage oil (INCI: Borago Officinalis Seed Oil) contains a lot of GLA, more, in fact, than any other oil we can find on our suppliers’ shelves. With 4% palmitic acid (C16), 11% stearic acid (C18), 17% oleic acid (C18:1), 36% linoleic acid (C18:2), and 23% GLA (C18:3), borage oil...
Evening primrose contains about 6% palmitic acid (C16), a titch of stearic acid (C18), 11% oleic acid (C18:1), 70% linoleic acid (C18:2), and between 9 to 12% GLA (C18:3). With so much linoleic acid we can expect evening primrose oil to help restore skin’s barrier functions, act as an anti-inflammatory, reduce scaling, and soothe dry...
Gamma linolenic acid (C18:3) is another essential fatty acid, one our bodies can’t produce. It has three double bonds, meaning it is a fatty acid that is going to oxidize quickly, so we need to combine it with some good anti-oxidants or use it quickly in our lotions. It is found in small quantities in...
I hope you had fun last night, despite the melting mess ups with the microwave! But there are no such things as mistakes, just things we know don’t work! Remember the techniques we learned last night can be applied to dark and milk chocolate – we used white so we could have fun with colours...