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.
I know many people – including my mom and best friend – want me to make an eye cream…and I kinda did. I’ve been using this recipe for Ritamulse SCG in a hand lotion as an eye cream and I love it! When I make it again, I’ll leave out the mango butter and beeswax...
As a quick note to the kind readers who have asked if I’m okay. Yes. Our town – Chilliwack – is experiencing higher than normal water levels and the parts of town outside the dike are being evacuated, but those of us in the non-flood plain part are fine. Thank you for asking! I’ll let...
A quick note about some things I found at Voyageur Soap & Candle! They’ve started carrying cetearyl alcohol, micronized zinc oxide (water or oil soluble), and a ton of new micas (the one to the left is blue lagoon mica). They’ll be carrying two new products in July that I will be running down to...
Why don’t incompetent people realize they’re incompetent? It’s a great question posed by Stephen Fry on an episode of QI I watched recently. The answer? The knowledge required to determine if someone is incompetent is the same as the knowledge required to be competent. So the people who are incompetent don’t have the skills to...
In this post, Anonymous asks: Hi Susan, I have a question about glycerin. I have read that it can act as a preservative, but the amounts I’ve read where it’s effective have been anything from 15-70%. I was wondering if I make a simple glycerin-water spray, with about 20% glycerin, if I need preservative or if...