Happy new year! Hope 2025 is an awesome year for you!
The photo collage above us from a lovely walk we had with Sasja yesterday on the new path being created along the creek one street away from our house. The weather has been amazing the last few weeks, blue, cloudless skies and bright sunny days.
Do you make resolutions every year? I generally think of September as my new year from going to school or being part of someone else’s school year, so I tend to plan to be more organized and tidier then. But I thought I’d share a few of last year’s and this year’s resolutions with you.
I’d love to hear what you’ve accomplished or what to do or make this year! Please share your thoughts in the comments! (You can sign in as “guest” for your comment, if you prefer.)
2024: Successful towards the end of the year! Health related stuff!
2024 was a harder year for me. Turns out the absolutely mind-numbing exhaustion I’ve been fighting all year may have been a result of very low iron. I’m finishing week four on iron supplements, and I’m already feeling so much better with far more energy. This bodes very well for 2025!
I also got the all-clear with lymphoma! More than two years of CT scans, bone marrow tests, PET scans, blood tests, ultrasounds, and so, and there’s no sign of it! Yay!
And the injections of lidocaine and steroids into my arms, lower back, and hips along with those same injections into my arms plus the epidurals and Botox for my head, neck, and shoulders are really relieving my pain, so I can do more and stand longer!
For 2025: I need to increase my fitness level with more BIKES!, walks, and using the elliptical at the new exercise park near my house.
2024: Success! My reading goal for 2024!
Back on January 27, 2021, I decided I’d read thirty minutes a day, uninterrupted, nothing about cosmetic chemistry. I made it two days, then failed on the 29th. I started again, and missed a day in mid-August 2021, but since then, I’ve read 1,240 days in a row, as of last night.
23,942 minutes over 366 days, which equals 65.4 minutes every day. Not bad!
I finished 81 books last year – actually 82, but I’d read that one earlier in the year – with an emphasis on fiction. I’m usually a non- fiction kinda reader, but I looked back to some authors I loved when I was younger – Tom Holt and Christopher Moore – and a bunch of new ones – Becky Chambers and Richard Osman – with a re-read of a lot of my favourite author and series, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld.
If you’d like to know more about what I’ve read this year, I’d be more than happy to share!
If you’re on Storygraph, you may be able to see details of what I’ve read there by clicking here.
For 2025: I’ve upped this year’s goal to 30 books from my usual 25, and I’ll see how I do!
2024: Success! Collaborating with other formulators!
This one has been a rousing success, as you can see with the amazing posts shared by Natalie Skiller, aka Sweet Little Crumb (Facebook, Instagram, and her new Patreon, This Formulating Life!. I’ve had a blast having long conversations with her about formulating, ingredients, processes, and life in general. It’s been such a joy!
I’ve been working with Annie of Atomic Pom Labs and Jamie the Chemist to create the Rocky Mountain chapter of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists as we really want a place where we formulators can come together to learn talk, and gave a great time sharing our love of cosmetic chemistry.
If you’d like to be a part of this, please click the link so you can sign our petition to start this group!
I’ve been collaborating with Jen and Jaimie of Lotioncrafter too!
And had a great trip to see Jen at her home in June, when we made a few awesome things I’ll be sharing soon!
And I’m always talking to Tammy of Voyageur Soap and Candle and Michele at Windy Point Soap Making Supplies!
For 2025: I’ll definitely continue doing this, and I’d love to add a few in-person coffee klatches for the warmer months when we can gather outside safely.
A bit of advice….The cosmetic formulator community can be an amazing one with loads of discussions and sharing and fun, but there are some DIYers and formulators who are super competitive or rude or just plain mean, and there can be a lot of plagiarism, thievery, and envy. I avoided a lot of these people most of this year, and it’s been wonderful! Who needs that kind of negativity in one’s life? Not me!
This is one of the reasons I closed the shampoo bar group on Facebook. I tired of the rudeness and aggression over such tiny things. I pledged to engage in more…
2024: Success! Positivity!
I’ve always been a firm believer in offering “likes” or 👍 or 💚 or something to indicate that I’ve enjoyed someone’s work on social media.
I’ve started leaving more comments now too, especially for pups!
Let’s put more positivity in the world along with letting people know we appreciate what they’ve shared!
If you’d like to see more photos of Sasja, I’m on Blue Sky as swiftcraftymonkey.bsky.social and I share loads of photos there. I’m also on Twitter as swiftcraftymonkey, but I don’t go there much any more. You can find me as swiftcraftymonkey on Facebook and Instagram, but I tend to stare fewer Sasja photos there, more just stuff about the site.
For 2025: I’ll continue to offer positivity and kindness when online and off. I’ll continue to state and maintain my boundaries around people who are rude or offensive.
2024: Not as successful, but getting better! Getting organized!
Yeah, didn’t do super well with this one, but I think I did well enough considering I’ve spent a lot of time reviewing a lot of the materials I’ve written or notes I’ve made on topics for the site. I found dozens of #alltheingredients profiles that needed a little something to get them ready to share. I found all kinds of formulas I haven’t shared! And I’ve been working on a number of series for the site and for e-books.
I have an updated table of contents for my notebooks, formula books, and Pages files, like my yearly draft post documents, which makes it so much easier to find things and make sure I’m not re-writing something I spent ages doing already! Woo hoo!
2024: Successful-ish! Learning how to use graphic programs!
You may have noticed over the last two years that I have more awesome diagrams around here, thanks to my amazing friend, Aoife Enns (Linktr.ee), who is awesome and I encourage you to commission stuff from her as you will be happy!
The always incredible Natalie Skiller, aka Sweet Little Crumb (Facebook, Instagram, and her new Patreon, This Formulating Life!), created the formula sheets you’re seeing on recent posts, and I can’t thank her enough!
I’ve been learning to make more infographics on Canva and collages on PicCollage, and I think I’m getting better at it, if “getting better” means swearing less as I use the apps.
Thank you for your feedback about the graphics I’ve been sharing! Please always feel free to offer constructive criticism and feedback so I can get better at what I do!
Oh, I started adding more alt text to photos. Did you notice? Did I do it right? Please share your thoughts on this as I want to make this site accessible for everyone!
Goal for 2025: Figuring out the e-books!
With having my arms in spasm – but getting better – I can’t write as much for as long as I could in 2021 and earlier, so I’m having a hard time getting e-books done as I’m working with a schedule that just doesn’t work any more.
I used to start the e- books on the 15th or so, after creating my outline, and I’d be done by the 22nd at the latest, giving me a few days to sit with the text, do a bit more editing, choose the cover, and so on. Now I’m lucky if I can get the text done in those 15 days.
I’ve also realized how much work these e-books have been. I’ve been putting out an e-book a month since July 2016, and they’ve grown from 30 to 40 page formula e-books to 130 page theory and formula e-books, full of links and graphics and huge charts, which is a massive difference. I absolutely love writing them, but this pace and size isn’t sustainable, as the last year has proven a number of times.
My goal this year is to have at least 10 e-books out to you on time here on the site. They will likely be shorter and have more references back to the site so I don’t have to write about what glycerin does for the 90th time. I’m hoping to incorporate more graphics and charts for your reference. And I’ll start writing them by the 10th of the month to have it ready for the last week of the same month.
My immediate goal is to finish November 2024’s e-book on body butters by January 10th, 2025. I apologize for the delay.
An aside for $10 subscribers!
If you were a $10 subscriber for all of last year, enter the code thankyou2024 into the coupon section when you’re buying e- books in the shop, and you’ll get $10 off your cart! You can even combine it with other coupons!
This is my thank you for your patience with my e-book schedule for 2024.
You can use it now, or save it for future products.
*You must have been a $10 subscriber for all of 2024 to 12:01 am PST, January 1, 2025. If you weren’t a subscriber for that entire time, the coupon will not work for you. If you missed a day or month or your payment didn’t go through or you tried to chargeback a payment, you were not a subscriber for the whole year, and the coupon will not work for you. If you try the coupon and it says something like “this coupon is not for you”, it is not for you.
If you think this is in error, you can contact Raymond for tech support at fulfillment@swiftcraftymonkey.blog. Please include the name and email address under which you’ve subscribed, and he’ll be able to help you further. We’re offering this a thank you for subscribing – it is a gift, not part of your subscription – so if you have an issue, please be kind and patient.
Goal for 2025: Sharing more formulas on the site and in e-books!
When I make a new product, I like to wait at least six months before I share the formula to ensure it’s stable. It’s good because you can trust my formulas won’t fail or become horribly contaminated or just let you down, but it means I can’t keep up with trends as easily.
The hard part is that I am often seduced by shiny things and I forget to check on my samples for ages or I don’t have time to write them up, take photographs, and all the other things I need for a post or inclusion in an e-book.
And I’m trying to write things up when the formula has been made, so when it’s ready to share, I will have most of the work done.
I’m bringing back “experiments in the workshop”, formulas that haven’t reached that six month point, but are looking pretty darned stable after a month. I’ll make sure the formulas are marked as such.
I also have a massive backlog of formulas going back to 2016 that I still have to format into the new graphics form and do proper posts or write ups for, so I have a list of what’s coming next.
As of January 1, 2025, I have these series and posts prepared and ready for the site (not necessarily in this order)…
Hydrating Eye Magic, An eye gel-cream filled with gorgeous actives and cosmeceuticals made with SIMULGEL™️ EG, made in collaboration with Jen and Jaimie of Lotioncrafter.
#alltheingredients posts on the ingredients used in this formula, including Eyeseryl Solution B and a few other eye actives! Woo hoo!
The Neck’s Best Thing (Lifting & Firming for the Chic Hen) or “Chicken neck be gone”, a series for creating a firming cream full of awesome actives from Natalie Skiller! (Oh my god, I love this pun so much!) Sourced from the monthly Q&A.
Why stearic acid, cetyl alcohol, and cetearyl alcohol aren’t emulsifiers – proven by looking at the HLB system.
How to use solubilizers! Do we need them in an emulsion where we’ve already used an emulsion? (Short answer, no.) Sourced from the monthly Q&A.
How to increase mildness in surfactant based products using a suggested product, sourced from the monthly Q&A.
I think I’ve been successful for the month of December in which I shared three formulas with variations, so yay to that!
2025: Catching up with the Q&A, and with my skin science certificate!
And I’m mostly caught up on the monthly Q&A, as you can see from this list. I have one on why pH doesn’t register for distilled or deionized water that I think I’ve been working on for a year for Anca, and I apologize for taking so long, but it led me town so many rabbit holes!
If you have questions or want help with a formula, the monthly Q&A is the place to be. Not only do you get a direct answer from me – and Natalie, who is so active in the comments section, thank you! – you’ll often get a formula or three as a result. Look for the category “Q&A” in the posts and you’ll see how many posts, formulas, and series came from questions you posed.
And I have to get caught up with the Society of Cosmetic Chemists’ skin science certificate as it’ll be done in June 2025! It’s a great series of courses, and if you’d like to know more, I’m happy to share my experiences!
How was your 2024? What are your hopes for 2025? What products intrigue you?
How did you do in 2024?
What are your goals for 2025?
How are you doing?
Do you have photos of your dog to share?
Please share your thoughts, questions, comments, suggestions, and everything else in your mind in the comments, and let’s do more communicating and sharing this year!