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.
At least once a day, someone writes to me to ask if they can substitute this oil for that one, and my answer is always “yes!!!” (although I don’t always put exclamation marks at the end of the sentence). I spent a small fortune on oils and butters when I started on this amazing journey...
If you want to make a recipe, but don’t have all the ingredients, substitute…with one exception – the cationic quaternary compound or conditioning agent. Identify the cationic quaternary compound (usually Incroquat BTMS-50, but sometimes Incroquat BTMS-25, cetrimonium bromide, or cetrimonium chloride) and make sure you don’t substitute that for something else. A conditioner is not...
Gina writes: Hello Susan, whatever you write about is fascinating and most interesting! For me substitutions are very interesting since I live in Europe and cannot find many of the “products” you mention – not where I can pay in Euros 🙂 As I mentioned in the post on INCI names, a lot of suppliers...
Christine asks: Hi Susan, I would love to see more information on substituting cones in recipes please and using more natural ingredient substitutes if that’s possible. Okay, the natural ingredients part is a challenge for me, but I can help with the silicones right away! I’ve written a post on the topic of silicone replacements here, and...
After writing this post on substituting for less expensive ingredients, I got to thinking about esters. You know I love my esters, but if you can’t get them locally or find them more expensive than our oils, you can use fractionated coconut oil in place of most of oil soluble ones in lotions and anhydrous creations....