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.
When we’re working with emulsification systems like e-wax or BTMS, we don’t think of how it’s going to emulsify our product. We just add the required amount and poof! – we have lotion. But if we want to create an emulsification system of our own, we need to turn to the HLB system for guidance!...
In anticipation of a series of posts on the HLB system and lotions, here’s a post on emulsification. I know I’ve covered emulsions in the past, but I wanted to expand it a little bit here. What exactly is an emulsion? For the purposes of this discussion, I’m going to work with the oil-in-water lotion,...
For the most part, most of the recipes you’ll see for bath and body products are in weights because it’s the most accurate way to get the results you want. And most recipes you’ll see for mineral make-up tend to be in volume measurements – teaspoons, scoops, and so on – because we’re dealing with...
If you haven’t figure it out by now, then let me declare my love of micronaspheres! I use these in just about every product I make because I love the oil absorption and I love the way they feel on my skin. You can use them at up to 100%, so they are an ideal...
Bismuth oxychloride is supposed to offer good coverage, good shine (too much for some!), and good adhesion. It plays well as a filler in micas, so let’s see how it works with matte pigments.As you can see, it doesn’t do much. At 1 cc colour grind to 1 scoop (0.15 cc) bismuth oxychloride (13%), there...