Highlights were: a great feed at Vitus and Isabel's house on Boxing day (including their family, Ozbeg and Katherine, and Paul and Anne), a visit with Sir Nasr and Countess Ellie on the weekend, and not doing very much at all for a few days ( Read more... )

...is very happy, having unwrapped a 10kg box of carve-able stone from J, aryanhwy's other half ( Read more... )

This weekend I discovered that you can leave your hardening soap too long before cutting it into bars. 1-2 days is ideal. 7 days is too long ( Read more... )

Last weekend I invested some time in kitchen chemistry making soap, towards Christmas gifts. It wasn't quite as smooth as working with a confident soapster like thorngrove last year, but I came away with two batches complete, and still enough materials for another batch.

I'm waffling over buying more supplies - I enjoyed the process, but don't know if I ( Read more... )

This weekend was a Time to Putter - an extended weekend with no event travel, from which I really, really did not want to return to work.

My second warming and whisking of my cold cream resulted in a much smoother mix, but as it cooled, the rosewater seemed to collect in pockets within the paste. When I scooped some out on a finger, there were shiny ( Read more... )

I have a blessed, treasured, carefully hoarded Day Off without Event Travel, and I'm lashing out to spend most of it on my cosmetics project. I'm inordinately excited about some basic chemistry. :-)

( Read more... )