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.
SwiftCraftyMonkey 
You know how much I love Voyageur Soap & Candle in Surrey, B.C., as it’s not only an awesome place to shop, but it’s my home base for classes. You can’t use the discount for those, but you can use it on everything else! I’m so excited about these candles I’ve been making with soy...
Woo hoo! The new e-book is here – Foot care your feet will love: Formulas for creams, gels, lotion bars, scrub bars, and so much more! In this massive e-book, you’ll learn to make all kinds of amazing foot care formulas – from 10 minute creams and cooling gels, to lotion bars and scrub bars,...
I thought I’d share some formulas to demonstrate what we covered in our short series on adding ingredients to the cool down phase of emulsions. In part one, we looked at why we added hydrolyzed proteins, mixed tocopherols, actives & cosmeceuticals, fragrance oils, and essential oils to the cool down phase along with some emulsion...
I hate AI. I hate the terrible writing; I hate the inability to put proper words into images; I hate AI music. I hate that using a emdash— now makes everyone think you’re AI instead of a good writer. You will never ever ever find AI on this site – except maybe for the background … Read more
Welcome back to this introduction to cosmetic chemistry course! Let’s continue our look at esters by investigating those that work as emulsifiers. We’ll get into some emulsion theory, information on the HLB system, then get into those esters! Today we’re looking at more esters we use as emulsifiers – glyceryl stearate, glyceryl stearate SE, and lactylate...