Woo hoo! Welcome to May 2026!
We’ve hard a hard spring so far. We unexpectedly lost our little Sasja dog in early March, which was so far beyond devastating, I’m not going to share more with you lest you become very depressed.
A neighbour noticed Raymond was going for walks on his own, and when I told him what happened, he told us of a little dog he had who needed a new home. He brought her over on April 8, and by April 9th, she was ours.
Her name is Emjay – she’s named after her mum, Mika, so she’s Mika Jr or MJ – and she’ll be four in May.
She’s Maltese-Shi Tzu, and possibly a bit of Yorkie? Last week, she had all her shots and was spayed, so she’s almost ready for adventures at the dog park and day care after her stitches are removed later today. Yay!
She’s a really happy, excited, loving dog, and we’re so happy to have her!
Share your thoughts with me!
I’ve realized this year I really need to hear from you, my awesome readers! It pushes me out of my comfort zone, gets me thinking, gets me into the workshop, pushes me to do more research, all of which are great things. It gives me ideas for e-books and Zoom workshops.
And it’s just really nice to hear what you’re thinking, so please share your thoughts with me in the comments, in the monthly Q&A, on my Facebook page or on Instagram (@SwiftCraftyMonkey), or by email me at swiftcraftymonkey@swiftcraftymonkey.blog.
I can’t write you a complete formula from scratch and I can’t consult for your business, but I can listen to what you’d like to know or what’s bugging you, and write some posts about your questions. You might see a formula or two, or it might turn into a series, who knows?
Site related stuff!
Holy cow! April 2026 was an even busier month than January! I shared over 36,000 words here on the site, 5,886 words in the handout pH meter workshop, and 43.007 words in the e-book, for a total of 78.258 words which I think is a record?
If I’d written a novel, it’d be 313 pages long and would take 5 1/2 hours to read! Woo hoo!
I’ve used up four pens completely in the last 18 months! I thought I’d never write with a pen again, and here I am filling up notebooks and draining ink!
I will never be able to thank my pain doctor and massage therapist enough for all their hard work to get me to this place where I can type a novel’s worth of work every month and use a fork again!
💧 If you were an April 2026 Innovation subscriber, click here to get the coupon for the e-book.
💧 If you weren’t, click here to see the e-book in the shop for $30 CAD (~$22 CAD, ~$30.61 AUD, £16.23 UK, €18.81)
If you’re an Innovation subscriber, we have suppliers’ coupons for you this month from Lotioncrafter (USA), Voyageur Soap & Candle (Canada), and Windy Point Soap Making Supplies (Canada). Click the link to see what’s there for May.
I’m still waiting to update Voyageur & Windy Point as of 9:40 am, so they’ll be there soon.
As always, you’ll find no ads, sponsored posts, pop ups, affiliate links, or anything like that and you will never ever ever ever find AI here in any form. We want you to have a seamless reading experience with nothing to distract you because that’s so annoying!
As a note, all of the formulas you find on my site, in the workshops, and in my e-books are professional grade formulas, safe, stable, awesome, and ready to use as they’re written. You can use them as a starting point for your formulas or you can use them as they are.
Every formula on this site has been tested in my home for at least six months, usually a year*, in a variety of situations to ensure they won’t separate or become contaminated.
*I often keep them longer – I just cleared my sample shelf of a lotions, oily gels, anhydrous products, and body wash going back to 2017, all of them awesome and unfilled.
Zoom workshop in May!
These will be open to Formulation and Innovation level subscribers*. As we have before, you’ll get a handout on the topic along with at least two formulas so you can follow along. I’ll share the meeting link, password, and printed materials a week or two before the big event.
You can upgrade your subscription to one of these levels at any time – even the day of the workshop – to join the workshop or access our last three on shampoo bars, pH, and cold process emulsifiers. Click here to find out more!
Don’t forget you also get a giant e-book every month as an Innovation subscriber! Last month’s was 173 pages with 57 formulas!
Sunday, May 17, 2026, at noon PDT (Vancouver, Canada time) – I know this is Victoria Day in most of Canada, but the 10th is Mother’s Day and we can’t do the 24th as it’s in the middle of e-book week).
I’ve shared a post with some topics that might interest you – click here for the post – and I’d love to hear what you think. Feel free to share other ideas too.
I’ll share the meeting link, password, handout, and formulas in the week before May 17, 2026, here on the site. I haven’t picked the topic yet as I’m still waiting to hear from you what you’d like to learn! Feel free to comment here or comment on the original Zoom workshop post, or message me at swiftcraftymonkey@swiftcraftymonkey.blog. I can’t wait to meet up again!
Is anyone still interested in the cold process emulsifier series?
Here’s the page with all the links, updated weekly!
I stopped the series as I was getting no feedback about it, but I really enjoyed writing it. I was looking forward to sharing FLUIDIFEEL™ EASY for making lighter, sprayable lotions and Olivem 2090, a water-in-oil (W/O) emulsifier, something we haven’t used around here.
I’d love hear from you if you’d like to see the series resume. Please comment or write to me at swiftcraftymonkey@swiftcraftymonkey.blog and share your thoughts.
We enjoyed a Zoom workshop about cold process emulsifiers in February, and you can see the workshop with the handouts and four formulas along with two modified formulas we made if you click on these links!
Zoom workshop: Modified formulas from the workshop – SEPILIFE™ NUDE!
Zoom workshop: Modified formulas from the workshop – Sepigel 305!
Chemistry Thursday continues!
Chemistry Thursday continues with the Chemistry Thursday series in March, starting with polyatomic ions, then solubility, then acids and bases.
Click here to see links to the complete series!
This is what we’ve done so far in this new section of the series…
In part 45, we started our introduction to solubility
In part 46, we continued our introduction to solubility
In part 47, we learned more about solubility
In part 48, we learned about the rules of solubility
In part 49, we enjoyed an overview of polyatomic ions.
In May, we’ll be looking at polyatomic ions, solubility, why we don’t use tap or spring water in formulas, electrolytes, epic fails with electrolytes, emulsifiers, and how this all relates to cosmetic chemistry and making more epic products.
Woo hoo! I’m so excited about this series!
What else is coming up?
This might be Whoops, accidentally all humectants May as I have profiles and formulas with sodium PCA and pentylene glycol planned.
I’ve been working on a huge post on urea for the Chemistry Thursday series that I might share as a main post instead because it’s getting so huge.
I have a series about using hyaluronic acid along with price comparisons for all kinds of different versions so we can see what’s most affordable.
I’m hearing you say you want to learn more about facial cleansers, so I’m sharing a link-o-rama with you tomorrow where you can get started.
And I’m hearing that you might want to learn more about shampoo – liquid and bar – as well, so I’m working on a few things there.
Again, share your thoughts and let me know what interests you and you may see it here on the site!
Hope you all have a wonderful May!