It's a pretty quiet period for us at the guesthouse, from now until the whale-season, so I'm not letting the opportunity slip by, I've been avidly soap-making and really seriously getting interested in my essential oils and lotions. And though I say it myself, I'm definitely getting better. I have a tried and true recipe for a lovely shiny monoi soap, and I've been playing around with essential oils, fragrances and colors this past while.......it's a little bit addictive dreaming up tropical scent combinations......I try to limit myself to two batches a day! I'm also, very cautiously branching out into fancier facial soaps and even a shampoo, using the hibiscus from the garden,.........as well as re-batching a fair few of my earlier trials (it's too great, you can even re-use your messed up batches, try repairing them to make new and different soap), which actually turns out to be pretty good fun too, though the results are surprisingly different in appearance and texture from the originals.
(The nine perfumes of my homemade monoi soap that I have in stock now,
top, from left: vanilla, plumeria, sandalwood, geranium-rose-vanilla, lemongrass-tahitian basil,
bottom : coconut-tahitian gardenia, citrus, Rurutu coffee, cinnamon-orange- patchouli)
