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.
Someone recently wrote to me about heating and holding the oil and water phase together in the same container, and wondered why the emulsion didn’t work (and it had worked in the past). First things first, we can make a lot of things emulsify that won’t stay emulsified. I remember making a lip balm with...
Tiffany writes: I love creating concoctions for myself and others, but I have been stumped on one thing that I hope you can answer. I know that we have to weigh our ingredients to get the most accurate measure, and I have done that. My question is once I have weighed my ingredients and converted...
Ruth wrote and asked: I wondered if you might be able to do a blog post sometime with advice on running these kinds of workshops! I expect it will be with adults, but other people might like to do this kind of thing with youth groups, and as you are into youth work, I guess you...
I am regularly asked how to make natural products and I guess I’m having trouble figuring out what that means, so I turn to you, my lovely readers, to help me define what exactly you mean so I can write up some natural product recipes! When I think of natural ingredients, I think of those...
Gina writes: Hello Susan, whatever you write about is fascinating and most interesting! For me substitutions are very interesting since I live in Europe and cannot find many of the “products” you mention – not where I can pay in Euros 🙂 As I mentioned in the post on INCI names, a lot of suppliers...