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 taught a craft group about a month ago where I taught my teens how to make a lotion. The recipe was one of the first recipes I tried myself, a body mousse with a six ingredients – water, humectant, oil, emulsifier, thickener, and preservative. It is absolutely lovely and a staple in my recipe...
I’ve written about beard conditioners before, but I thought I’d expand the topic a little more considering we’ve been discussing conditioners at length for a while. Manly men with giant beards can benefit from beard conditioners in two ways – it can help keep their beards nicely conditioned and detangled, and it can help moisturize...
Conditioners make awesome shaving products, and you don’t need to make many tweaks to get an awesome product that offers post-shaving moisturizing! You can use any of the conditioners we’ve made with cetrimonium bromide or BTMS-50 as shaving products…but let’s tweak them to make them even more skin friendly. I love adapting conditioner bars to...
With most crafts, you know right away if something works – your earrings don’t fall off, your skirt fits, your cookies look and taste great. With making bath & body products, time is an essential component in determining success or failure. I like to give it at least three months – preferably six months –...
I’m of the firm belief that humectants are a girl’s best friend. They draw water from the atmosphere to our hair or skin to moisturize them. We use them pretty much every product we make – if possible – but some people are wary about using humectants in hair care products. Humectants can be amazing...