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.
Blueberries are my favourite fruit – I can eat them by the handful in the summer until my tongue and lips are purple and we freeze over 20 pounds to make sure I can make it through the year! It’s also gained a reputation as a superfood, something filled with anti-oxidants. Does it stand up...
I’m a big fan of being local – shopping at local stores, using local ingredients, supporting local crafters – and I was so excited to see raspberry oil on sale at some of our suppliers! I live in the Fraser Valley, and we’re known for our berries – raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, and others – and...
This dry winter weather is wreaking havoc on my hair, making the ends all hard and brittle, so I thought I’d make myself a little conditioner with coconut oil. But the winter hair custard I made a few weeks ago is quite high in coconut oil – 10% – and it’s causing my hair to...
We’ve established that studies have shown that some oils can penetrate the upper layers of our stratum corneum and that this can be a good thing because it means those oils can help improve the barrier lipids we find in the stratum corneum. So let’s take a moment to see if fatty acids we find in...
We have a ton of comments from the last few weeks, so let’s get started! The series on oils generated loads of great comments, so let’s take a look at those… PLANT EXTRACTS VS. OILSIn the post Can oils penetrate our hair? Anastasia asks, Plant extracts vs oils: why would you choose one over another? For...