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.
In the spirit of making cooling sprays as we just did with menthol and alcohol, I thought I’d share some links to the series I wrote last year – it’s too hot to craft! – when we made products that didn’t need heating. Introduction (updated, links) Summery floral gel Peppermint & chamomile cooling spray Cold process...
The other day, we took a look at a few ingredients that might make our skin feel cooler. (And there’s a neat discussion going on in the August Q&A about ingredients that might make our skin feel warmer.) In the July Q&A, Mary shared, Today it is 110˚F degrees outside and I have to be outside...
In the July Q&A, Marta asked, I was wondering how you handle your large (and growing) inventory of formulating ingredients. Do you truly discard them when they are beyond the stated shelf life? Perhaps you just know which ingredients you can store for longer than recommended. Or, perhaps everything is refrigerated (seems impossible). In knitting we...
In the December Q&A, Terri asked: My question is about recipe management and keeping ingredient inventories low but adequate to cover a given time period. I have been using a digital cooking app called Living Cookbook to create recipes and ingredients because it allows me to quickly scale them and create a shopping list when...
Like clockwork, when it comes time to collect subscriptions from patrons, Patreon screws up yet again. (Click here for the endless saga of Patreon’s inability to do anything right.) This time it appears the issue is that they moved their payment processor to the UK, so anyone who was paying from the States with debit … Read more