A Brief Introduction: or, Why I Came to Make My Own

Prior to my Scandinavian migration, I used to order artisan soap from the Soapmeister, all the way from USA.

I was intrigued by handmade soap. For one thing, the Soapmeister used only vegetable oils, which meant it wouldn't contain lard - which is incompatible with my religious beliefs. And I had found out that the Lux soaps my family used while I was growing up had copious amounts of tallowate, of - surprise, surprise! - indeterminate origin. So I had been looking for other soaps. For a long time I used Johnson's & Johnson's wash. I loved the peach fragrance but really hated the slimy film it left post-shower. For a while I used the Body Store products, but they weren't cheap.

By this time, I was trying to be more eco-friendly - which, in my native Singapore, back in the 90's, is not easy to do. I became a regular shopper at one of the few places that stocked eco-friendly imports by accident. When The Organic Paradise moved from its Orchard Road location to Chinatown, I followed. I overlooked the Buddhist overtones (they usually played chants in the store) and found competitively priced Ecover laundry detergent, Natracare feminine products, and discovered the joys of cooking with rock salt.

But, more importantly, two other things happened that made me a loyal  Soapmeister customer for several years.

One: Lush opened it's flagship store in Singapore (so yes, this was early in the new century). I came, I sniffed, I was convinced!.... at least until I used it. The seaweed soap tickled my fancy, but using it gave me a bad rash.

Two: after I told her my tale of woe, Cheri sent me a free sample. All the way from the US. And her soap was the best thing my skin had had, ever. She even became a pen-pal of sorts.

Fast forward to the summer of 2006. From the tropical humidity of an island "paradise", I came to live in Sweden. I thought I could take the weather in stride. In the beginning it was actually not so bad. But the low humidity meant my skin took years to recover. Winter was the worst time. If I didn't slather myself in mosturizer twice a day, my skin became papyrus. And then, the Soapmeister's lovely, lovely soap didn't do anything for me.

Then and again, nothing did. Some of the commercial stuff they sold in local pharmacies helped some, but by far and large, I found that the mosturizers sold at Apoteket didn't stay on. As soon as I washed my hands, all the emollients disappeared, leaving my skin drier than before. Also, the lack of daylight in winter, when at best we'd have 4 hours of sunlight, was terrible. I didn't work up a sweat properly for years (except when I had been heavily exercising).

It took years for my body to stabilize somewhat, and eventually, in 2011, while on a cruise liner to Talinn I found a mosturizer that worked for me, Onboard, in one of the duty-free stores, I found a small pocket-sized aluminium pot of L'occitane's shea butter. And when I washed my hands, the butter stayed on. It was a revelation. In a short time I found that L'occitane's shea butter was probably processed, and numerous blog posts agreed that the unrefined stuff was much better... they were right. The nutty smell didn't bother me as much as olive oil or coconut butter did (primarily why I didn't consider using them). As my skin got better, I began to think that perhaps I could go back to using handmade soaps again. But the Soapmeister seemed to have closed up shop and disappeared.

And so I turned to Google. I reasoned, if it was handmade, then, perhaps I could make my own soap.
The first soap batch I made was a disaster, since I had no idea how to work with coffee grounds, and for some reason I thought it was a good place to start. (Warning for new soapers: it really isn't!)

This was 3 years ago.

I still consider myself an amateur soaper at best, and I'm not sure that my soaps are anywhere as good as the ones from the Soapmeister. But that's not going to stop me experimenting, now that I know how not to screw up too much.