Some Childhood Memories

Beautiful soaps by TokyoFactory
My favourites include: first row from left, Victorian Rose Bath Fizz Cake  (I often find it tempting...as if I could eat it), a beautifully wrapped soap bar; second row, Sea Breeze Soap with Goat Milk Yogurt & Organic Coconut Water; third row, my soaps in their gorgeous packaging. 

Do you use soap bars, or do you use liquid soap? 


If you are like me, born in the 70's, you must have grown up using soap bars.


Not only did we use them to wash hands, body, face, hair, clothes (yeah), I was told that the fragrance could put off bugs who would feast on your clothes! It was somewhat a luxury to place a bar or two LUX inside our wardrobes to ward off insects and to leave some long lasting sweet smell on our clothes.


And during the 90's, when everything moved fast, or too fast, we needed something more convenient and gradually no more sighting of soap bars on the supermarket shelves. Instead, bottles after bottles of liquid soap, in their vibrant liquidly and jelly-like colours, lining up for people to buy.


Recently during one grocery shopping, a lady in front of me at the till was transferring her shopping from the basket to the counter table when I spotted the few bars of soap she was cradling like newborn in her arms.


Do people still use soap bars??


I don't even see them on the shelves!!!


What era is she in??


Are we shopping in the same supermarket??


Yes, I admit. I did make a big fuss about it, as if I had never seen soap bars in my life.


Back home, I remember I was researching for my new treasury list when I came across soaptician (nice name, huh) Ayu's wonderfully created soap bars. Not only do they all look like some art masterpieces, sometimes I just have to remind myself they are not food...albeit how delicious her soaps all appear to be.


After creating the list, I clicked the picture again and just went shopping. I so wanted to bag all the items but the shipping was hefty because of the weight of the soap. I still managed to pick a few. 


When they arrived a week later, I even went out to buy a soap container! 


I must tell you how gorgeously refreshing Sea Breeze smells! Every single piece is a work of art. I admire Ayu's creativity and her patience. All her products are photographed very beautifully too, and have I already mentioned the packaging? I did save all those intact stickers and put them in my diary! They are so nice as a display! I hardly wanted to use them!


And I found that I had washed my hands more frequently... ha ha ha. I felt like a child again, going back and forth and repeatedly doing something for its pleasure, not really for its function, or necessity.


Then I remembered. When I was a young child, my beloved grandma would come visit us frequently. My mother had four children in the span of five years and grandma probably thought she couldn't really handle it. She loved giving us baths and she loved washing my hair in the basin (since I was young and having flexible muscle, I did and was able to tilt my head backward for grandma to wash it). She was always using a bar of soap, singing in her Shaoxing dialect, "ta bee song, ta bee song", smiling, happily bathing her grandchildren one by one, and occasionally giving me a kiss on my cheeks.


:~)


As I write, I am trying to hold back tears.


Grandma is still here, at her very double golden age, approaching her 100th birthday in three more years.


Many times you think you cannot find something, whether you are shopping for a particular item, or shaking your handbag like mad searching for that damn car key which often goes missing. 


Perhaps because you are not looking?

I mean, really looking.


Just a week ago, I shopped again for some convenient liquid handwash in the same supermarket, when I noticed many bars of LUX soap were quietly sitting there on the shelves, just patiently waiting to be picked up. 


Many of our happy childhood memories are not lost, they are still there, shelved in that corner, possibly blocked by some recent happenings.


But if you look with your heart, you will always find them.


And when you find them, they will always bring a smile on your face.


Because, you are evidence that you were once very much loved, and you were once a simple and happy child.


:-)

My Etsy finds for "A bit of blue" led me to Ayu's Sea Breeze Soap