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.
The recent cold snap we’ve been enjoying in southwestern B.C. had me thinking a lot about the effects of cold on our products, especially given that most of the ingredients in my workshop have either frozen or become so cold they won’t pour out of the bottles. I got to thinking about why oils cloud...
As you know by now, I don’t sell my products. It’s not that I lack faith in what I make – I know my products are well formulated, well preserved, and contain ingredients that offer great skin feel – but I simply don’t have time, I suck at sales, I hate being on a deadline,...
So we’ve taken a look at a few versions of a 3-in-1 product. So you aren’t out there buying a ton of ingredients, check out the surfactant posts or the chart to see which ones will work best for your needs. Here’s the basic skeleton of the recipe I’ve been using for the last few...
Let’s re-build this 3-in-1 product from scratch to see how we can obtain the same goals with completely different ingredients! Let’s take a look at our surfactants first, because this is the place I start every surfactant based product. I always want to include cocamidopropyl betaine at 10% or higher, and I think I’ll use...
We had great fun last night making Christmas cards at the library. I worried we’d have a low turn-out due to the ice and snow, but we had 23 youth in the meeting room making all kinds of lovely cards! We also had fun in Yarrow on Tuesday making cards, and on Monday at the...