Since I’ve been making soap, I usually don’t buy commercial soap anymore. But once in a while I like to pick out some handmade soaps I find on sale, especially ones made with good oils. The last time I was at Pier One Imports (and browsing the clearance bins), I found these pure olive oil Greek soaps selling at 98 cents for 120 g or 4.2 oz. They usually sell for $3.50. Made by Agno in honey blossom. The Greek name “AGNO” stands for the term “PURE” in Greek language. It’s a good deal, so I bought two to try out first. Handmade soaps usually retail for $3 or more each.

I loved the picture of the honey being drizzled in the bowl from the packaging. But it wasn’t until I got home that I realized the honey blossom was just fragrance. I thought they had added real honey as the soap smell just like real beeswax. I’ve heard that adding beeswax and honey to soap makes the bar harder, but I have not experiment with it yet. But I have some handmade body lotions with pure beeswax and it smells great. Read the rest of this entry »

The first sign of spring for us in California is usually peach or plum blossoms. But sometimes you can catch wild daffodils growing alongside the highway too. And the one I look out for most of all is pretty and colorful tulips growing from the garden. They don’t look like normal flowers since they remind me more of Easter eggs in different colors.

Photo from The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival Information.

And when I think of tulips, I always think of the Netherlands. Or the fact that tulips at one time in history was very valuable and caused a “tulip mania”. Or more of a speculative bubble, like that of the dot come years. But that is a whole other topic. Read the rest of this entry »

Once in a while I like to spend my lazy sunny afternoon at our local charity shop. In our area, we have the American Cancer Society shops called “Discovery Shops”. People donate things to them and they sort all the neat things to sell with all proceed going towards cancer research. I think I will do some spring cleaning and bring some nice stuff to them. Especially stuff I have not worn in the past few years.

The shop has all kinds of neat lightly used things, from fancy items like Chanel suits and luxury handbags to Manolo Blahnik shoes. I like finding cute coffee mugs, usually ones from England and Japan. But I should stop collecting them since I have too much. So now I usually come out empty handed, but it is fun look around. It feels like you are visiting a stranger’s house and you get to look at their closest and other things. Except it’s not so strange and the stuff are all for sale!

I liked this Chinese style coffee table too, it was for sale at $30. It’s made of high quality wood too. I really liked the curved corners of the legs. I think it’s very Feng Shui! So it be great if you have little children running around the house, as there are no sharp corners. But I don’t have room for this at my place. If anything, I need to downsize my life more then ever. Read the rest of this entry »

I recently tried this new drink by Bossa Nova in Acai with passionfruit flavor. It’s a healthy drink made with Acai berries from Brazil. These little purple berry are getting really popular these days. Acai is pronounced “a-sigh-ee”. The people at Jamba Juice always try to correct people when they are wrong (which can be funny, but gets annoying fast). So remember to pronounce it right the first time.

This brand is good and healthy since it’s sweetened with agave syrup. The bottle design and the health benefit was what got my attention. I like the graphic design on the glass, it was very artistic and I love the font and coloring. I also love the fact that it’s packaged in glass bottles. But later found out they are switching to plastic now. I rather they kept the glass bottles. It was priced at $4 for 10 fl oz. Still too much for me, I find it more reasonable at $2.50 to $3 a bottle. I think Safeway has them for $3.50.

Photo from Bossa Nova USA.

Ingredients: Wild-harvested açai juice, organic agave, botanical flavors, citric acid.

And for every bottle you drink, it saves a rainforest tree’s life. More info at Bossa Nova USA.

To continue with my latest hot process soap post, I used an empty juice container for my soap mold. Now I have little bars cut out of my hot process soaps. I imprinted them lightly with a leaf, it’s suppose to be an “olive leaf”. I call this my “Olive Leaf Luxury” bar since I used a combination of 5 very moisturizing vegetable oils (and no palm oil). I am trying to experiment without palm oil and see how the bars hold up. The basic recipe usually calls for 3 combination of oils. This bar also has goat milk powder and olive leaf extract.

Total amount of oils is 32 oz for my 4 quart crock pot. This was recommended as you do not want it to boil over if it’s too much for the pot. Or burn the pot if the batch is too small. I cooked my soap in the crock pot for 1 hr. You can tell it’s ready when it starts to look like Vaseline. Take a tiny bit between your fingers and rub it together, if it’s grainy then it’s not done cooking. But if it’s smooth, then you are finish. Start washing you hands and you will find tiny little bubbles.

Healthy looking green olives are used to make olive oil and the leaves have many health benefits. Photo by Gaia Herbs.

This bar has a very silky lather with lots of bubbles and slightly nutty aroma, plus my hint of peppermint essential oil. It’s still very soft now, but it should harden up by a week.

Percentage used:
Avocado Oil 15.38
Grapeseed Oil 15.38
Rice Bran Oil 23.08
Soybean Oil 30.77
Sunflower Oil 15.38

Sorry I won’t be adding any instructions here as I think there are many resources available in print and online. Some great soapmaking books are listed under my Resources page. Great pictures and tutorial from Zen Soaps here.  Thanks. Read the rest of this entry »

This was my first attempt at hot process soapmaking. The main reason why I didn’t want to make hot process soap was because I didn’t think the end result would look as nice as cold process. But I was SO wrong! It looks just as nice. And it was much more fun and easier than I anticipated.

I read Handcrafted Soap by Delores Boone before attempting this new method of soapmaking. I was surprised that it didn’t curled up along the edges like Delores had mentioned in her book. Instead it looked like cottage cheese and then applesauce. And finally it looked like Vaseline and I knew I was going in the right direction. It was an exciting day of soapmaking for me. I decided to add a bit of Peppermint essential oil at the end, but didn’t have enough. I was tempted to use Vanilla extract, but decided to skip it. Now it has just a hint of peppermint.

Here are the different stages of my 1st attempt at hot process soapmaking.

Advantages of hot process soapmaking: Read the rest of this entry »

Happy Valentine’s Day

I’m not exactly into the chocolates and flowers thing. But I do love cupcakes and vintage Valentine’s card. This little cupcake looks really yummy. Chocolate frosting sprinkled with more sweet dots and red little hearts. Photo by Glorious Treats of northern California via Flickr.

And of course kittens always make me smile. This cute vintage card collection is from sunset flame via Flickr .

I was talking to P some time ago, he had just got back from a biking trip across Vietnam. P kept talking about how much he enjoyed eating fresh dragonfruit or pitaya. I had never heard of such a fruit and wasn’t sure how it should look. All I can imagine was something with scales maybe? Then I saw pictures of the fruits and was immediately intrigued by how beautiful and strange it looked. There are three types of dragonfruit - red flesh, red fruit with white flesh and yellow fruit with white flesh.

The photo above of dragonfruit farm taken by tk yeoh of flickr. Notice how the fruits are wrapped in bags. Possibly to protect them from birds, bats, and other natural elements. Dragonfruit farming has been very popular in Asia, from the Philippines to Malaysia. They seem to grow pretty easy and are also grown in San Diego greenhouses. The plants are also available for purchase from Florida. Some day I like to make a trip to these farm and see the real fruit tree. Preferably at harvesting time!

On my last grocery shopping trip to Trader Joe’s, I saw some dried dragonfruit packaged in Thailand. I bought several packages at $2 each. The dried fruit is deep red to purple, with little black seeds that look like sesame seeds. They taste nutty and tart at the same time. I can also make dragonfruit tea with them. The water turns into a very pretty bright pink color.

Photo from Kluang Farms Malaysia.

There is even dragonfruit wine made in Malaysia. For these Kluang wine, the farm uses the red fruit with red flesh. The wines are exported to Singapore, Hong Kong, the Middle East and Europe. They should bring some to the U.S. market. I would love to try this, it’s probably really healthy too. Hey, Trader Joe’s global buyers, if you are reading this - please bring some to the states. Read the rest of this entry »

Agave isn’t just grown for it’s syrup. It’s actually a very pretty ornamental succulent that could liven up any yard. Especially yards in in the South West or Western part of the U.S. I came across these great photos of different varieties of agave used in landscaping in California from Sunset magazine. I aspire to have a dessert garden someday.

“The light green leaves of a colony of A. attenuata contrast in this combo with the nearly black rosettes of Aeonium ‘Zwartkop’.” - Sunset Magazine. I like the contrast of green and deep purple in this garden.

“The thick spine-tipped leaves of Agave parryi add a touch of blue to the yellow-greens of sedums, aloes, and aeonium.” -Sunset Magazine. I really like this combo of 4 different types of succulents. The large aloe would provide me with great aloe vera gel.

This year California may be facing a severe drought. Our heavy rain season starts around autumn and continues through spring. I can say this year’s rainy season was not so good. I think we had some cloudy winters, but not much rain. Mostly fog in parts of northern California.

Concerned homeowners and avid gardeners may want to look into finding ways to conserve water. But I have mostly desert plants that are in pots, so it won’t be much of a problem for me. My mom said she may cut down on what she will be planting this year too. The latest idea suggest replacing the common lawn and yards with native plants. This idea is termed “naturescaping”. These two front yards are good examples of naturescaping. Photos were taken by City Steward of Portland, Oregon.

There are many benefits for naturescaping and to growing native plants. A great landscape design practice also located in Portland, Oregon named Plant Native gave us 6 good reasons. They are listed below:

1. Low Maintenance - Native plants evolved to grow in local conditions and to predictable sizes. They do not require watering (except during establishment), chemical pesticides and fertilizers, or frequent cutting.

2. Public Health (lowers cancer rates) - Traditional landscaping uses large amounts of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, some of which are suspected carcinogens. During rains, these chemicals often run off into public water supplies. Traditional landscaping also contributes to air and noise pollution.

3. Saves you Money - The cost of maintaining a naturescape is dramatically less than that of a traditional landscape because a naturescape essentially takes care of itself. Naturescapes also save you time - and how valuable is your time?

Read the rest of this entry »