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 
Happy Canada Day! It’s July 1st, and look at my farm grow! We have four bean plants now – for which we have purchased three different trellises as they outgrow them quickly – and three celery plants, as well as a bag of potatoes growing. I’m so excited for early August when all of these … Read more
Woo hoo! I’m so excited to share my new monthly e-book, Waterless beauty: Creating hair & beard oils, in which you’ll learn not only how to make these highly customizable formulas, but you’ll learn how to make your own from scratch! Waterless beauty is taking off this year, and these all-natural, anhydrous (without water) hair...
In today’s post, part 22, we’re meeting medium chain fatty acids – caproic acid, caprylic acid, capric acid, and lauric acid – all of which we encounter regularly in cosmetic chemistry. An important note about this series – it’s here for life. It isn’t going anywhere. If you want to take a break or take...
As we’re working towards a few different duplicates of the Brazilian Bum Bum Cream, let’s take a look at one of the three emulsifiers*, Eumulgin SG (INCI: Sodium stearoyl glutamate), a strongly anionic (negatively charged) emulsifier that offers a light or “nude” skin sensations, creating non-greasy, non-waxy, emulsions. *The emulsifiers in the Bum Bum cream...
Hey, everyone! Hope you’re enjoying the second day of summer/winter where you live! It’s been rainy here the last few days, so our new green beans, celery, and potato plants are growing like silly after a really hot spell last week. My new page, emulsifiers in alphabetical order is now live, so you can search...