I'll try to be good, I promise!

I'm back from busy, busy land and hoping that I've passed all my exams in my final semester. That being said, if I do pass, I will have completed my first degree :). So many things have happened!

I was doing a Bachelor of Business (Tourism and Hospitality) and I do not want to start working yet!! Well, work for real or full-time rather. I told you I'm lazy. Anyway, in high school in Malaysia or Year 11 here in Australia, I took purely science and maths subjects. Now, I have this crazy desire to take up science and maths again. It's either a Bachelor of Science or a Bachelor of Arts. If I do science I have no clue what subjects I will take but if I do arts I will take up two languages and linguistics.

I wouldn't mind doing a Masters but I don't want to be overqualified and besides, I don't know if I will be able to survive a Masters! If anyone wants to offer their opinions or advice it will be gladly appreciated :)

Back to soap and such! A picture below of the shampoo and conditioner I made for my sister. The recipe for this particular conditioner is different to the one I made before. I upped the water content plus added some extra goodies like green tea extract and dimethicone. Overall, I preferred the previous recipe eventhough it was simpler.



This conditioner is very light and suitable for people with oily hair or those who wash their hair everyday. Otherwise, if you have hair like me on the drier side, you will need to slather on heaps more. However, I find with this conditioner, you can get away with less washing as it conditions but doesn't weigh down the hair. In essence, it takes longer for you hair to become oily (accumulate sebum) between washes.

Still, I will try reducing the water content for next time to increase the strength of the conditioner. However, it still is a lovely conditioner and my friend commented on the softness of my hair which made me happy!

The shampoo has a rich lather and leaves your hair squeaky clean. That may or may not be a good thing depending on what you like. It does contain glyceryl cocoate for emollient properties and absolutely no sodium laureth sulfate! The main surfactant was a PBS base from Aussie Soap Supplies. I, personally, do not like the squeaky clean feel and might experiment with different surfactants.

Both the shampoo and conditioner are paraben free as well as pH balanced to about 4.5 - 5. There is some science to acidic shampoos and conditioners which tighten the cuticles of the hair instead of lifting them up like basic hair products do. It is supposed to make hair look shinier and feel smoother. I was doing some googling about pH and hair which you can do too if you are interested! There are quite a few articles.

The one in the picture is fragranced with Ginger Souffle by Aussie Soap Supplies. The colour was achieved by steeping some hops flowers in boiling water. I'm happy with the colour and although the smell is unlike the Ginger Souffle fragrance from Origins, it is still very pleasant. The smell of the ginger is a bit more evident and there is a touch of honey in it which works extremely well with the sharpness of the ginger.

I also scented another batch with Island Kiss (Escada Type) which by the way smells exactly like the real thing! However, the earthy smell of the hops messed with the fragrance a little. So, in my next batch I will have to keep an eye out for smell altering properties. Some of the surfactants had a strong smell as well but the fragrances covered it up nicely.

Anyway, I'm off! I am going to make a yummy eye cream next which will have a secret ingredient I'm eager to try out. See you all soon! I've missed all my blogging friends :(

A Long Break

Hi guys! I'm so sorry for my absolutely dead blog :(. I haven't forgotten about it! I still love formulating! I have exams until the 14th of November so I'll be taking a break until then. Expect more posts and a Christmas giveaway after that. Hope to see you all at my "grand reopening" :) Bye!

Xoxo,
Michelle

To Garden or Not to Garden?

That is the question I am asking myself at this very moment. My aunt loves gardening and I think she gets it from my grandfather who is also an avid gardener. He has a pretty little vegetable garden and a small part is being overrun by the notorious peppermint plant! I'll have to take pictures the next time I go back to Malaysia.

Anyway, it was a beautiful, balmy spring day today and I was looking out into the back garden. Both the front and back garden are badly neglected because my aunt doesn't have time to look after them anymore. She used to devote her weekends to tending them but now she spends her weekends at the farm. So, the poor gardens are literally choked with weeds.

I saw a plant in the corner with pretty purple and pink flowers which I couldn't see properly at first due to all the weeds. They had grown so tall it was like pushing through foliage in a jungle. I started about weeding it and I used to love pulling up weeds as a child in my grandfather's garden. Anyway, I must have forgotten what it was like because I wasn't prepared for this...



and this



and this



and one small unidentified grayish white insect which sort of looked like that small insect next to the spider in the previous picture though I'm not sure if they're the same thing.

I think I now have four new phobias. Four different creepy crawlies in one pot, what are the odds?!? Okay, maybe the odds are good and someone should have told me that before I went outside! The millipede was the worse! I poked it with a dry leaf and it started scuttling out. It's like a worm that can scuttle!!! The worm-like appearance, the amount of tiny legs and that curling up thingy that they do eeewwwww!!

Ugh, so to garden or not to garden? Can I man up to the task?

I don't know.

Right now, I'm cowering indoors like a little girl in my millipede-free world with my millipede-free cup of tea typing on my millipede-free laptop.

I still get shivers looking at that picture.

On another note, ph paper is not so readily accessible and I will have to order them online from a supplier. Sigh, can you say too much hassle?? I was bored waiting for the delivery of the paper so I made some soap. Unveiling tomorrow or the day after!

Have a nice millipede-free day people! Unless, of course, millipedes are your thing then you're welcome to mine. Bye!

P.S. As I went to type center in HTML I typed centipede LOL!

The Hermit Life

I bet you've all been wondering (or not) why I dropped off the face off the earth *again*. Well, this time it's because I'm planning something big! I'm planning a *drum roll please* wait for it...wait for it...I'm planning a....GIVEAWAY!!!!!!!

That's right! It's spring in Melbourne the weather is 21C today and I'm happy. I've been holed up in my house experimenting with my latest creation. I thought it would be easy to put this together but boy, was I kidding myself. There were so many unanswered questions I had that I've been doing a huge amount of research. It really needs to be just right.

So, I think I'm almost there. All I need to do now is to find some pH Hydrion paper. It's proving more difficult than I thought.

Okay, I'm rambling and I'm eager to show you what I've been working on! I've told Dan to contact his high school today to see if they have any. Fingers crossed.

I'll be back with the unveiling and the giveaway details ;)

Banana Bread

A few days ago, I was over at Joanna's blog Product Body who by the way is an awesome bath and body formulator, and found out about a trade she did with Leslie from The Hungry Housewife. You can read Leslie's take on the trade here. Leslie's banana bread for Joanna's product goodies! How incredible is that? Pure genius, I say!

That's how I discovered Leslie's recipe for a banana bread. If you had gone over to Joanna's blog and read about the trade and taken a peek at the pictures of the banana bread you will understand why I just *had* to make this. It was great timing because I had four bananas sitting in the fruit basket that were starting to turn black.

Ta-dah!



Wow wow wow!! These were so-very-incredibly delicious! I can't believe I actually made these! Why do they look like muffins? I wish I could say I did it on purpose just to be creative and different but the truth is, I don't have a bread baking tin so I improvised :).





Also, there are only three banana muffins pictured in this photo because I took these two days later and these were all that were left. 10 people tasted the bread and all of them gave a thumbs up! And this was without the blueberries!



So, if you are just dying to make some banana bread now and I know you are ;) scoot on over to The Hungry Housewife's blog and check out her banana bread recipe. Then after that, banana bread french toast maybe? All in all, this really is the perfect banana bread!