Woo hoo! It’s slowly becoming my favourite time of year – autumn going into winter. Today is our little Sasja’s ninth birthday – she’s already sleeping off her small beef jerky treats – and Raymond’s is next weekend on the 11th (Thanksgiving long week)!
We’re learning how to make mozzarella cheese this weekend with the hope of making some lactose-free so I can enjoy them too. And I plan on doing a lot of formulating in the workshop this month to get ready for the giving season!
Okay, I finally get the joys of planting your own food now! Behold our Bintje potatoes and green beans, the latter of which is still going as of October 1, 2025. I have so much fun checking on how many beans we have every day – we have two full bags right now from four small plants.
We’ll be continuing in the winter with garlic.
Do you have some suggestions for what we could grow indoors or out over the winter – we don’t get that much snow, but it can get down to -5˚C (23˚F). I hate cruciferous veggies of any type – the Brassica family is not welcome in this house – so those aren’t great choices for me. (Especially sprouts. Oh no, why do they exist?)
Oh dear god, I think broke a record for how much I wrote last month – or should I say, how much I shared here as there are thousands more words that were lost in the editing process and some that are being shared in October.
I wrote 77,564 words between the site (46,427 words) and the e-book (31,137). And I wonder why my arms hurt?*
For those who might remember that I had such muscle pain that I couldn’t type for ages, the treatments are going so well, I managed that? Woo hoo!
I have so many plans for posts this month. I want to continue the series on altering emulsions to include different preservatives and compensating for a potential loss of viscosity along with sharing some of the formulas I’ve been working on over the last 18 months!
I’m slowly getting organized, but still in the middle of inventory as we have a hazardous chemical day next weekend, and I need to get some of the things like lye and acids to them to get the workshop ready for all the formulating over the next few months.
What’s happening in October? Our cold process emulsifier series starts this Friday!
Don’t forget – we’re starting our cold process emulsifier series this Friday, October 3, 2025, starting with SEPILIFE™ NUDE or SIMULGEL™️ EG.
You’ll find posts with sample formulas for SEPILIFE™ NUDE on Friday, and the same for SIMULGEL™️ EG on Saturday.
Then Friday, October 10, 2025, we’ll look at making lotions in less than 10 minutes!
You can find these specific emulsifiers ingredients in Canada at Windy Point Soap Making Supplies or the US at Lotioncrafter.
If you’re an Innovation level subscriber, we have coupons for each of these shops on the suppliers’ coupon page of the site.
Want to play along? Click here for the supplies needed for the upcoming introduction to cold process emulsifiers series! You’ll find other suppliers for the series here!
What are we doing? A beginners’ series on emulsions!
I have been having so much fun writing this series about emulsions and how they work in the Chemistry Thursday series that I thought I should share it with those who aren’t playing along.
I think this will happen on weekly on Tuesdays nearer the end of the month as I’m wrapping up the second draft, so it’s all about the links and diagrams and such now.
What kinds of things would you like to know about emulsions? Share your thoughts in the comments or email me at swiftcraftymonkey@swiftcraftymonkey.blog and I’ll make sure we cover it in the series!
What are we doing? Continuing our Chemistry Thursday series!
I’m having so much fun writing up this series, and we’ll be coming to an even more fun topic in the next few weeks – triglycerides!
Yep, the 35 parts of the series so far has been working towards the awesome fun of triglycerides we find in oils, solid butters, butters, waxes, and other natural emollients. I’m super excited, and can’t wait to share it with you!
It’s a self-paced course, so you can start any time you want by reading the first post in the series here. You don’t need to know any chemistry – that’s the point of the series – and you only need grade 3 or 4 math as we’re doing nothing more strenuous than adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing, all the things you already know how to do when following formulas.
Click here to see links to the complete series! (Updated to part 34)
An important note for $1 subscribers!
When we increased the rates earlier this year, we advised that $1 subscriptions – a tier we eliminated in 2023 for new subscribers – would be coming to an end, and this is that time.
Starting today, subscribers at this level will slowly become ineligible to read any formula posts and aren’t eligible to join courses/classes or Zoom workshops. Just a heads up.
You can upgrade to a Foundation, Formulation, or Innovation subscription at any time. Click this link to learn more. Or you can remain and read the rest of the posts as you wish.
Discount coupons for Innovation subscribers!
We still have the two additional discount coupons this month from Formulator Sample Shop (USA) and Simply Ingredients (USA) for Innovation level subscribers, which means you get discounts from FIVE different suppliers in North America, including Lotioncrafter (USA), Voyageur Soap & Candle (Canada), and Windy Point Soap Making Supplies (Canada).
Holy cow, using even one of these coupons can pay for your monthly subscription here, and you get the e-book too? Nice!
Click here to see all the suppliers’ coupons for October 2025 – Suppliers’ coupons
If you were a subscriber in September 2025, don’t forget to get your coupon to get this e-book for free!
Woo hoo! I’m super excited about this month. I realize I’m taking forever to share the Bum Bum Cream duplication, but there’s been a shocking amount of work to shop for, order, use, and write up the different ingredients in it. I have a few 10 minute emulsifier versions of it, which I’m pretty sure I like more than the original, so I’m crossing my fingers I will get that up before the end of the month.
What are you excited about this month? Are you getting ready to do any formulating for the upcoming holidays for selling and gifting? Do you craft wonderful things with your kids, family, and friends?