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 what a micellar solution is – “A micellar solution consists of a dispersion of micelles in a solvent (most usually water)” (from Wikipedia) – but I don’t know why these words are being used to sell skin cleansers. As I mentioned the other day, I had occasion to visit a well known Canadian...
We stopped at Denny’s the other morning for breakfast, and our waitress had a lovely bracelet, which I admired. It was a stretchy bracelet her mother sent her from the Philippines. I loved the green glass bead that looks like bok choy, and the tiger bead that looks slightly vicious and bite-y. She took my...
Thanks to everyone who made suggestions helping me not get mascara all over my eye lids! I tried a few things, but nothing seemed to work. I tried putting the mascara in the fridge – this kind of worked, but it still remained really wet. I’ve tried a ton of different brands. I even tried...
If you subscribe by e-mail, you might have seen a post called “how much are you getting of each ingredient per application?” I’ve removed it because it wasn’t ready for prime time yet. It’s something that was going through my head, and I thought I would write it up and put a random date on...
I’ve started wearing eye shadow more frequently, but I seem to be unable to apply mascara without getting it all over my eyelids! I’ve tried a few different brands – L’Oreal telescoping (lengthening), LashBlast (volumizing), New York Colour City Curls (curling), Big Curls Don’t Cry (waterproof, curling), and Maybelline Great Lash (volumizing), to name a...