The Kinder Soap Company

Phew, last night my gynae finally gave me the go-ahead to be discharged from the hospital, and I’m now home with my family! Baby and I are doing well. I’m very grateful for the whole experience—I got some much-needed rest, and I’m also even more thankful for my hubby and children (though I can’t say I’ll miss hospital food).

Apart from medication, the doctor sent me home with advice to put my feet up more often and not to do anything too strenuous. I’ll have to adjust to being even less active than I was last week, which feels very strange! But still, business will go on as usual here, though not quite as speedily as I would like.

Thank you for all your good wishes and prayers—they helped in some way or other, I’m sure! Have yourselves a great weekend.

Gone are the days of me cringing at the thought of my mom yelling at me to do things (or Not to, more often!) — because I’m the one now sounding like a broken record when I’m with my two darlings!

My favourite line: “And if all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?”

Happy Mother’s Day to all you mommies out there. And while I’m at it, why not treat your mom (or yourself) to some skin-loving goodness by getting her a bar or two of my soap? Go on, have a nose around the shop.

I waited and waited and waited…

Then finally the window of opportunity opened and grabbed my first chance to create an Etsy Treasury. Oh, the (cheap) thrill! I called it “Mommy Wants These!”. You will not get a prize for guessing the rationale behind it.

Found that fun? Then please visit the Treasury and check out all the wonderful handmade things that other Etsy sellers lovingly craft for our enjoyment.

Happy weekend!

I read somewhere that one soapmaker likened churning out a batch of cold process soap to making a banana cake in your kitchen. They are both just as easy or complicated to make, depending on how fancy you want the outcome to be. Now that I’ve been making soap for quite a while I can see how that comparison came to be.

Here are some photos of the utensils I can’t do without when I pull on my gloves to make a batch of soap.

Stainless steel pots. The one on the left is for making the lye solution (sodium hydroxide + water), while the larger one on the right is for warming up the oils. It’s important not to use any utensils that contain aluminium, as the metal reacts with sodium hydroxide and won’t do anything good for soap. Trust me on this, because I found out from first-hand experience. Ahem. :”>

Clockwise from bottom left corner: 2 heavy duty plastic pitchers (to measure out lye and for containing raw soap), 2 slotted spoons (to mix lye and oils), melamine mixing bowl (I usually mix my raw soap in there), another heavy duty plastic pitcher containing hand blender attachment, two stick thermometers and a rubber spatula (for scraping off every last little bit of soap from the sides of my mixing bowl).

My two stick thermometers (also known as meat thermometers). Very important, as I have to keep track of the temperatures of both the oils and lye mixtures, ensuring that they both fall within the same range of between 32C and 42C, before I can mix them together to get saponification going. Falling out of this temperature range can mean a failed batch of soap (so I read), although I have yet to experience this.

You can find these thermometers at specialty baking shops, the more uppity departmental stores and also your local hardware store. I bought mine from Isetan KLCC, as I was still holding down a full-time job nearby at the time.

And finally, the item that works the hardest for me — my trusty Philips hand-held blender. Without it, I could be stirring my raw soap mixture for 3 hours before it saponifies enough to be poured into molds! Thankfully it usually takes me just 5-10 minutes tops to bring my raw soap to trace.

So there you have it — a little tour of my kitchen utensils that help me make soap. Isn’t it great that they’re familiar items? No fancy specialty gear needed. And for the record, all these are used ONLY for making soap — I don’t use them to prepare any of my meals. While I take great pains to make sure they are thoroughly cleaned after each soapmaking session, I can do without the possibility of having traces of soap, essential oils or at worst, LYE, in my food!

Sorry for going MIA from the blog for quite a while. The household has been very busy (as has been everyone else) with Chinese New year preparations and me trying to keep up with the children! It’s been fun — our new servant from Cambodia arrived about 2 weeks ago and she’s settling in well. Her English is pretty rudimentary, so it’s like teaching another child in the household how to speak the language. I think she’s doing admirably well.

I took a short break from making soap but it looks like it’s time to restock again. My DreamTime bars are almost all gone now! Thank you to all who placed orders over the Chinese New Year and Valentine’s period, and a very warm hello to new customers who made their first purchases from us recently.

Ah, here’s the thing that I’d like to announce — The Kinder Soap Company’s 100% Money Back Guarantee. I’m so confident that my soaps will benefit your skin in some way or other, that I’m willing to offer a full refund on any purchase that you are not satisfied with, for whatever reason (except for them turning up a little worse for wear after going through the postal service, sorry :p. You needn’t send the soap back to me. Just write in to me at michelle(at)kindersoaps(dot)com and I’ll make arrangements for a refund right away (including shipping costs, if applicable).

Now how’s that for quality assurance and peace of mind? And as an internet shopper, would you feel more at ease with this kind of guarantee being offered to you? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Oh finally, oh joy, Kinder Soaps is now able to process your payments securely using PayPal, for a more complete online shopping experience! You’ll see it as a payment option as you make your way through the checkout process.

In other news, we found out today that we’ll be expecting a baby boy in June. :”> I’m just glad that with all the rushing around with my two little monkeys, baby no. 3 is growing very nicely.

I’m also happy to announce that I’m gearing up for this year’s Chinese New Year and Valentine’s double celebration by whipping up new soap recipes to fill your gift baskets! Also in the pipeline is a purifying french green clay facial mask which I am still perfecting, meant for congested and sensitive skin that needs some extra cleansing and pampering. Hoping to unveil that within the coming week.

Happy weekend!

The next time I want to get my supply of dried flowers to adorn my soap, I’m *not* going to order it online from a specialty skincare store. Let me tell you what I’ll do instead.

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My username there is @salameander. I don’t just talk about soapmaking though—my tweets are also a mish mash of running commentaries on my children’s antics, personal musings, and what I do as a Minister of Finance and Home Affairs.

So look me up, and I’ll answer the question: “What are you doing?”

Last week I was poking around www.beauty360degrees.com to get some essential oils for my next batch of soap. There was such a variety on offer, it was quite difficult to rein myself in and not get carried away! So I finally settled on 5 bottles. They arrived beautifully and safely packaged on Saturday morning—the start of my excellent purchasing experience with them.

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Earth Day messages, carnival games starting from 20 sen for a go, lucky draws, a craft corner, henna art, face-painting, a juice station where kids can help prepare fruits and vegetables for juicing… What a packed morning it was at Educare! Brandon was visibly overwhelmed at how his playschool had transformed into a carnival-like atmosphere, so much so he took quite a while to warm up to the surroundings all over again.

As always, I met some really nice people at the event—children, parents, teachers, visitors, other vendors. A special shout-out to Belinda who made the prettiest corsages! Brandon loved his.

For the stall I had sliced up some bars of Olive Wheatgerm Honey, Goats Milk and Patchouli and Just Lavender bars to be sold at RM5 a slice, then RM4 a slice for 4pcs or more, and finally at just RM3 a slice for 10 or more pieces. By the end of the day I was almost out of Goats’ Milk and Patchouli soap—people loved its herbally scent! And luckily I still brought the full-sized bars along, because some people asked for them specifically.

I also was really happy that I could avail sample bars for people to take with them to the washroom to use, especially when they had kiddies to clean up from being outside all morning. One father, who bought some soap earlier, came back and asked for one so he could clean up his son’s face which had been painted on (and was starting to run off from all the sweat!). It’s a strange feeling to be so pleased sitting near the toilet!

Thank you to all the teachers and staff at Educare who made the event a real success. I hope you all managed to collect a sizeable sum in terms of donations for UNICEF and WWF as you had planned, and it was an honour to have been invited to be a part of such a heartwarming event.