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Every Wednesday, I permit myself to have a day/half a day off to do anything that I want, as long as it’s creative. This policy came from more than a year ago when I was my own boss, and I realised that I hated my boss. The exploitative bitch would not let me rest during weekends, yelled at me all the time, and didn’t even pay me well.

The bitch and I had a conversation, and I told her that I would quit if she kept at it. I would find another boss, and she could get another minion. She gave me a long, steely stare. I stared back. Then, with a sigh, she asked me how she could improve my working conditions.

Wildcard Wednesday was then born. I could work my ass off every other day of the week, even weekends if I really had no choice, but Wednesdays were dedicated to gleeful creation and play. No work was allowed on Wednesdays, even though sometimes I sneaked an hour or two in (but never more than that). In the place of work, I made new dishes from scratch, played with my Snap Circuit renewable energy circuit board, and tinkered with random projects. I read books for leisure, doodled, and daydreamed.

It was really quite pleasant. My productivity went up during other days of the week. I gained some self-respect and balance. The inner bitch and I were friends again.

(As an aside, Wildcard Wednesdays drew inspiration from Awesome Mondays, devised by Eva and I when I was doing my PhD in Singapore. I always worked weekends, but on Mondays we would get a bottle of wine, some cheese and crackers, and whisk ourselves to a beach on Sentosa Island. We would set up our picnic on our matching sarongs, swim and laze around, get progressively tipsy, and then beat up coconut trees with beach towels. With all the vengeance directed at disappointing lovers, rejected publications, and a persisting fear of never amounting to anything important in life. Ah, Awesome Mondays.)

Wildcard Wednesday was shelved when I moved back into employment last year. Fast forward to this January, I left my job and am now my own boss again (at least until someone else pays for my time). I’m looking for research work, writing proposals for possible funding, and reading as much as I can. This time around, I’m not as crabby as before, since a year’s detour into coordination and communication work served to confirm that I am really, ultimately, a researcher at heart, and that’s where I want to work and play. The inner bitch is much less bitchy, and the reluctant employee, much less reluctant.

And, Wildcard Wednesday is back. The last few Wednesdays I had spent drawing mind maps of chapters in Sun Tzu’s Art of War. Today I spent some of it reading up literature on resilience and systems thinking (ok this is kinda work), but I am also taking some time to write and to think. I’m looking forward to trying out a new recipe tonight, I haven’t decided on what. When I close this post, I’ll start browsing recipes.

It’s a day like any other, but I have a glint in my eye, a smirk on my face. I’m inviting inspiration fairies to come plant ideas of mischief. The evening is still young. What shall we do, if we can do anything?

Screenshot at 2018-01-20 23-53-19

I’m adopting Leo’s 8 year old Macbook Air from circa 2010, and its sluggishness provided the perfect excuse to tinker with Linux again. The hardware is still solid, and the specs are acceptable. The old boy has a few years more to go yet.

So from a few days ago I had been reading up on different distributions and then getting my hands dirty on the actual installation and customisations. After a few days of cracking my head on various seemingly trivial problems, I am finally at the stage where I am comfortable with my “new” computer, so I thought that I would jot down some notes for posterior’s sake.

Choice of distribution

There are many. There is Ubuntu, which I tried several years ago and had a good experience with (but don’t remember too much of), but I was afraid that it may be too bloated for the old machine. And then there are LXLE, Elementary OS, and Linux Mint that I had heard about that seemed to be viable alternatives.Ubuntu required 2 GB of RAM, Elementary OS 1GB, and LXLE only 500MB.

Eventually I decided to try out Elementary OS first. Elementary OS looked sleek and elegant at first glance, but soon started to get on my nerves. The language keyboard did not work, and keyboard hot keys did not make sense (I couldn’t figure out how to switch between windows when an Alt-Tab or CMD-Tab should do the job). The localisation was very messy – when I tried to use the Chinese version to see if the language input worked, some items on the country menu were translated, some were not. Also, on top of that, there was something annoying about the interface being so simplistic, I felt that it was bordering on patronising. And that it called itself elementary in lower case just felt pretentious.

So I decided to try LXLE on Virtual Box. Somehow I took to it quite immediately – the desktop gave you everything that you needed on dropdown menus, neatly organised into applications and files. There was even a button that when you pressed it, it gave you a random wallpaper, which tickled me to no end. As if it was so efficient in its interface that it even found the space to give you that trivial functionality. The OS also came pre-installed with numerous applications, such as Libre Office, Mozilla SeaMonkey (first time I’d ever used it), and other nifty stuff.

I never made it to Mint. I decided to ditch Elementary, and go with LXLE.

LXLE: Installation problems

This was where my problems started with LXLE. I created a live USB, and LXLE worked fine when I booted from it. However when I tried to install it it would always break down at the very last bit, saying that “the ‘grub-efi-amd64-signed’ package failed into install into /target/”, and that without the “GRUB boot loader” the installed system would not boot. The gibberish level of this one is just too high. I tried reinstalling it, same error message. I created the installer medium again, it didn’t work. I tried installing an earlier, beta version of the .iso file, nope. I suspected that something was amiss with UEFI (now I know what it is, it’s like BIOS but superior) but nope my system does support it, and the partitioning was done correctly.

Eventually through some hours of research I found an application called Boot Repair and I ran it on the system – it said something about lacking a 64-bit something (bear with my non-techie specificity), and so I tried to make another installer which was 64bit (previously I had used the 32-bit version), and this time it worked. That took about five hours of banging my head against the wall, and I finally made it at 2am.

Leo agreed that my stubbornness is useful sometimes.

Chinese/Japanese Input

So I went to bed, and this morning upon waking up I went straight to the computer and started working again. I must say that I quite like the LXLE interface, things are placed where they should be, and that gives me pleasure. The language input methods did seem to work at first glance, but I quickly realised that Pinyin was not available and I  don’t know how to use the other ones. I tried ibus, I tried Fcitx. Neither gave me Pinyin. The organisation of LXLE on its language settings is also a little strange, as it was a little fragmented, spread over “Languages”, “Ibus Preferences”, “Fcitx Configuration”, “Input methods”… and sometimes you have to restart after making some changes so that the input method options would show up. Patient trial and error was my friend.

Eventually I installed ibus-pinyin through Terminal (sudo does make me feel powerful) but for some reason it gave me Sun-Pinyin instead, which only had Simplified Chinese, while I prefer using Traditional Chinese. I poked around some more, and finally after restarting the computer I found Pinyin. I installed Japanese-Anthy through Terminal as well. I am now using Mozc as the Japanese input method. For the time being I am sorted, language-wise.

Installing applications

I realised that I don’t actually use that many applications. What is indispensable to me is just Dropbox, and KeepassX. Seamonkey was pre-installed so I just started using it as the default browser. In the beginning I thought that I would have to do everything through Terminal, which made me nervous, but eventually I found the pre-installed Lubuntu Software Centre (a little like App Store) which made things much easier – and even for other command-line installations it was usually just short lines of code that I could copy and paste. I don’t remember how it was in Ubuntu.

The Power Button

Having gone through the previous hurdles I was starting to feel confident, and decided to tackle one more important problem. The power button on the Macbook Air triggered an immediate shut down, no questions asked, and this is very dangerous since you could lose your work if you accidentally press it when you were pressing the Delete button, or your cat could trigger it easily when it is walking on your keyboard (which is not an infrequent happening in my household).

This little endeavour proved to be much more difficult than I thought it would be. I was instructed to download and install dconf Editor, which I did, with just a faintest idea of what it was – and I started to tinker with it, but I couldn’t find this thing called gnome setting daemon. What’s gnome? What’s a daemon? Later on I found that there’s this other thing called “Mate” which seems to be a similar something as Gnome, even though nothing happened after I changed the values in the dconf Editor. I was getting a little too far out of my depth.

In the midst of all this despair I sent a distress call to Pellaeon. While waiting for his reply, Leo helped me with a hack that I found online (this one) which instructed us to modify a certain logind.conf file, which stopped the immediate shutdowns, even if I felt a little insecure about changing some code that I had no idea about, since it might cause problems later on. We left the cafe, somewhat triumphant, and I collapsed into a deep sleep when we arrived home.

When I woke up, I saw that Pellaeon had replied my messages in a superbly comprehensive manner. I copy his explanations here for future reference:

  • GNOME is the name of the “desktop environment”, it includes supporting programs for the desktop (such as drawing the windows outlines and toolbars), many basic functionalities (such as the system settings tool and text editor)
  • in the linux world, GNOME and KDE are the two major desktop environments
    they have the most development resources
  • They are also modular, so parts of them may be re-used by other projects
  • the LXDE reuses many parts of the GNOME desktop environment
  • LXDE and MATE are also desktop environments, they reuse parts from GNOME but combine them in different ways, so the interface looks different
  • “daemon” is basically a program constantly running in the background, for some service, imagine it as a shop that waits for customer 24h
  • in contrast to daemons, the applications are only opened by users while they need it and closed while they don’t, such as your browser, documents editor, etc
  • daemons and applications are both programs
  • to build a desktop environment, many daemons are needed, for example, there is a daemon handling power button, lid open/close, power plug/unplug events
  • the daemon is called “dbus”, it is the de facto desktop event handling daemon, used by both GNOME and KDE, and of course most of all the desktop environments
  • dconf stands for “dbus configuration” if i’m not mistaken, so dconf-editor is a editor to change dbus configurations
  • beside power change events, dbus also handles most of the desktop-related events , such as wifi scans, enable, disable, headphones/mic plug/unplug, device plug/unplug, keyboard layout management, printing, etc
  • it is basically a “message hub”, it receives notifications of some event (such as power button press” and rewrite/block/re-broadcast the notifications to programs that “subscribes” themselves to the event
    org.gnome.settings-daemon is the name of the configuration value that decides the behavior when you press the power button
  • the configuration values are grouped in a hierarchical fashion
  • under “org.gnome” are all settings related to GNOME, and under settings-daemon are the configurations related to the GNOME settings daemon
  • so for example, the KDE settings are likely under “org.kde”
  • the problem with these configuration knobs is that, the paths/names may change from version to version
    LXDE might simply follow the settings of “org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power” , or they might decide to use their own settings under “org.lxde.xxx.yyy.zzz”
  • so for your error message, it cannot find the path org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power, there might be 2 possibilities:
    1. the org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power knob have moved to some other path in your version of GNOME (that your version of LXDE is using)
    2. LXDE simply has its own knob somewhere
    or:
    3. LXDE doesn’t allow you to customize the power settings behavior at all
    Can you try this? https://askubuntu.com/questions/568957/how-to-shut-down-lubuntu-immediately-with-the-power-button-instead-of-a-logout-m

So we undid the hack, and installed the XFCE Power Manager (as per the link sent by Pellaeon) which provides a GUI for all the tweaking to happen. I am very satisfied with the outcome.

Current Status

I’m still having to get used to Hotkeys that are a little different from what I had in Mac OS, but all in all everything works like a breeze. I like the task bar, which Mac OS didn’t have, which I didn’t know that I missed. I like the different work spaces as they’re laid out more intuitively than in Mac. There are small things that I still need to tweak, such as the volume buttons on the keyboard not working anymore, but those are not high priority.

Using LXLE now somehow brings me back to perhaps 15 years ago when I was tinkering with my first computer, when things crashed, and working with the PC had some element of learning and risk when you didn’t know what you were doing, but 硬着头皮 did it anyway. Nowadays everything works and you don’t even think about it anymore.

I think I’m going to enjoy my new old computer :)

My last post was in February 2016. And scrolling through the graveyard of dead drafts I see that in 2016 I made a few attempts to write something. The last draft drafted was on the 31st of December, 2016. It didn’t make it. In 2017 I hadn’t even tried. Well, up till tonight.

Tonight there’s something racing in my head, a little Tasmanian devil spinning around and around trying to get out of my head, onto the keyboard, splat onto the screen. Tonight I feel as if I have had an overdose of caffeine, even though I haven’t had coffee at all. Tonight I feel a bit of vitality seeping through the cracks of my hardened soul, and if I knock on the right places, maybe we might just break the dam and get me out of this multi-year writer’s block.

I haven’t written in such a while! This business of self-expression has long eluded me. When I started my first blog (in 2005), I wrote for myself, and for the people who I fancied were interested in reading about my life. Looking back, I can’t imagine why they would be – I had a pretty boring life back then. Life has since become multifold more interesting, but at the same time I developed an expanding self-censoring mechanism, a result of growing consciousness of the dangers of exposing oneself in this digital wilderness. A concoction of fears – of unintended consequences due to unintended audiences, from the revelations of my hero Edward Snowden, and of leaving indelible digital footprints for ever and evermore – rendered the impotence complete.

But tonight I’m feeling brave. Exhilarated. I need to tell someone. Hear me, everyone and no one.

I actually don’t know why this has come about. We can find this out together. Writing usually makes things clearer for me. So, while I write this and while you read this, we are on the same page (literally and figuratively), just separated by space and time.

Maybe it has something to do with this overwhelming high that came out of a recent Youtube channel find – Acapella Science – which tickles so many of my fancies simultaneously that I’m experiencing this extreme joy. The below video is my favourite from his collection.

I must have listened to it at least twenty times by now, but I still experience this frisson from how perfect the vocal arrangement is, and how the lyrics snap into place in beautiful precision. That I am dancing to celebrate art and science, together. There’s something spiritual about this. I want to never stop listening to it, but yet I am afraid to exhaust the magical energy that I’m harvesting. At least there are about 10 science songs from his channel that I’m rotating.

And the more that I think about it, the more I feel that the draw to me is not only the marriage between art and science, but how unapologetically nerdy this musical scientist Tim Blais is. The rendition is impeccable, but what shines through is Blais’ strong conviction in his art and science, no matter how obscure and arcane the subject matter might be, or how niche the audience might be. More than beauty, I draw courage from this steadfastness to be true to oneself and to execute that self-expression into perfection.

The result is distilled joy. I am going to bed with a smile on my face tonight.

Maybe, just maybe, I can write again.

 

It’s 10:30am and since this morning I’ve been tinkering with the solar cooker that I’ve made out of makeshift materials. Inspiration struck yesterday and I was watching youtube videos and perusing the resources from the good folks of Solar Cookers International Network – while waiting for the sun to rise today – and so here we are, with an old cardboard box lined with aluminium foil, seated in a polystyrene box, positioned in the most sun-optimal part of the house at the balcony.

The lined cardboard box is covered with a pane of glass that I happened to have lying around (yay greenhouse effect!) and in it is a black baking tin. My thermometer that measures up to 110 deg C is lying in the box as well. The polystyrene box outside is for keeping the heat in, and doubles as a convenient holder for the heat reflector (usually used in cars against windshields to keep the sun out – in this case it is amplifying the sun’s effect on my solar cooker). The baking tin is black because black absorbs heat most readily.

Side view

Side view

Top view

Top view

Back view

Back view

9:30am: Temperature in solar cooker is at 29deg C.

10:15am: Took a salted egg (the type that is wrapped with black salt) from the fridge and put it into my black baking tin, as the very first thing that I am going to cook in the solar cooker. I didn’t have any other cookware that was black, and the baking tin didn’t have a lid – so I chose to cook something that was black as well, with no water vapour.

The temperature within the solar cooker is 30deg C. The sky is cloudy. There is some intermittent sunlight shining onto the trees right outside my balcony, but usually direct sunlight doesn’t come onto my balcony till about noon, and only comes for 1-2 hours. This will change as we go further into the year, mid year we get, I think, about 5-6 hours of full sun. That is when I think I’ll be able to really take advantage of the sun for cooking.

Salted egg in baking dish

Salted egg in baking dish

10:45am: Temperature is at 32deg C. It is still overcast.

10:54am: Checked weather forecast – it seems that it will rain in the afternoon. Should have checked the weather forecast earlier :(

11:03am: Temperature now is at 33deg C. A tiny sliver of direct sun is showing itself on the next wall – it will come our way in about 1.5 hour’s time. It’s windy and cloudy.

11:14am: It’s still at 33deg C, though I thought that the glass felt a little warm when I hovered my hand over it. Leo didn’t feel it though so maybe it’s my brain manifesting its wishful thinking. I am now wearing sunglasses when I go check on the cooker.

11:31am: It seems to have dropped to 32deg C. I am feeling dejected and my only source of hope is the expanding sliver of sun on the next wall. I have also found some recipes on the Solar Cooking Wiki (part of the Solar Cookers International Network website).

12:07pm: The temperature is now at 34deg C. The sun is advancing, but the sky remains cloudy. The hope is that the rain will come after I get some of my full sun, just to see how high the temperature can go. I am full of regret that I didn’t do this experiment a few days earlier when it was so warm. Still, my sunglasses are perched on the top of my head as I write this, indicating my adamant optimism for a better outcome every time I go check on it.

12:20pm: 36deg C, go sun, go! Incidentally, I rediscovered this product which is called the Go Sun stove, which seems to be the coolest thing for camping. I got to know about it some time ago when I chanced upon its Kickstarter page, and it looks like nowadays it’s in production. It’s not cheap, and I wonder if it’s possible to try to make a copycat product based on same principles. I now regret that I never spent much time learning woodwork or metalwork in Kemahiran Hidup back in high school. Would be useful now when I’m life hacking.

Source: Go Sun Stove

Source: Go Sun Stove

12:32pm: 37.5deg C. Unfortunately there’s a big thick rain cloud above in the sky which I observed with annoyance through my sunglasses. Taking off the glasses did not help assuage the worry that my hopes of a full sun may be dashed. Well, as long as it’s not raining the solar cooker will remain standing out there. The glass does feel warm to the touch now, as it’s a titch above my body temperature.

12:45pm: 37deg C. The rainclouds are really heaping in, and I’m slowly losing faith. Spot, in a gamely show of solidarity, is now camping beside the solar cooker and keeping watch.

Spot is keeping watch

Spot is keeping watch

Rain clouds :(

Angry sky being angry

12:55pm: I watch in despair as the temperature recedes to 35deg C. Spotty got bored and left. Maybe it’s a sign that today’s not a good day for solar cooking.

1:34pm: It’s 37deg C again. The rain has not begun pelting down although it had been threatening to do so for the past hour. If the rain clouds were gone, the sun would be right on the solar cooker by this time – which probably explains the increase of temperature again, even if the sky looks pretty dark by now.

1:50pm: It’s 38deg C. I doubt that we will get much further progress today though, even if it hasn’t started raining – in an hour or so the hypothetical direct sun (behind layers and layers of clouds) will have deserted my balcony, and so I don’t think the temperature will rise any further. I’ll still keep it out there but it seems a lost cause by now.

1:52pm: Just started raining :( Mission aborted. Brought the whole setup indoors. Better luck tomorrow.

1:58pm: Started wondering if I could try to set up a project regarding rainwater as well – if you can’t beat them, join them right? Maybe a rain chain? To harvest downpours of rain?

Rain chain

Rain chain (source)

Notes:

  1. Always check the weather forecast first. ;_;
  2. As a proof of concept I probably chose the worst day to test the prototype. Even though the sun wasn’t out the oven’s temperature rose steadily, but then it receded when the sky made clear its decision to rain on my solar cooking parade. Hence we have no idea if this thing will work or not.
  3. It was fortunate that I didn’t lay out any elaborate recipe and only put a single egg into the baking tin, but this was because I didn’t have a lid for my baking tin and didn’t want the ingredients to steam up my greenhouse glass lid (which I assume is a problem – not sure if it is). So I gotta figure out the lid problem or get another cooking container.

The funny thing about this project is that while the sun has mostly been a source of annoyance in a major part of my tropical life (until I visited temperate countries, which was when I realised that we’re lucky and ungrateful bastards in this side of the world), now I’m actually eager for it to unleash its full power on my balcony so that I can see if this solar cooker works. Goes to show what a change of perspective can do to one’s likes and dislikes.

As you know I have been on an experimenting stint on body and bath stuff. Today I decided that I was going to make lip balm, an unexplored territory, though it’s supposed to be one of the easiest things you can do. So, I found a basic recipe, which recommended

  • 3 parts carrier oil (I put 1 part wheat germ oil, 1 part avocado oil, 1 part sweet almond oil)
  • 1 part beeswax
  • 1 part solid butter (I used shea butter)
  • essential oil – (start with 1 to 2 drops per tablespoon or 1/2 ounce of ingredients, adjust as desired)

You put all the oils into a heatproof glass beaker, except for the essential oil that goes in later during the cooling phase,  put it into a double boiler (see figure below), melt the oils together, and then when they’re fully melted you put them into containers of lip balm.

Illustration of a double boiler

Illustration of a double boiler, not to scale

Fairly foolproof. One could probably do it with a hand tied behind one’s back.

But, pride comes before a fall. I did everything nicely up to the point of mixing everything into the beaker. I put the beaker into an empty bowl, and poured some boiling water into the bowl – and what happened? The tiny beaker started floating, capsized, and water started flowing in!

Nooooooooo! I cried, possibly followed by a mix of choice profanities. Within the split second that I needed to react and tilt the beaker upright again, x amount of water had invaded my lovely oil mixture. In panic, I added in y amount of emulsifying wax, and started stirring vigorously. Poured some more boiling water into the double boiler,  beaker threatened to capsize again, another round of profanities ensued – such drama!

In any case, the beaker was stabilised, and I stirred it quite a bit, and added some ylang-ylang essential oil and a few drops of preservative after I took it out of the double boiler. At this point, as you have noticed, I’m not even pretending to measure things anymore. This ship has capsized, and sailed (I realise that the metaphor makes no sense here).

Little containers of cream and not lip balm

Little containers of cream and not lip balm

So while the cream was starting to set, I poured it into two tiny containers. I didn’t really want to use too many of my limited tiny containers to put some dodgy accidental cream in, so I only managed to store about 2/3 of the cream, and was left with 1/3 to use on the spot. When the cream solidified to a thick mixture, the texture wasn’t that bad, except that there’s some sort of sticky after-touch, if you know what I mean. Given the high amount of oils in it, it’s also rather greasy.

I tried to use as much as I could, on myself and on the exposed parts of the immobile Leo who was working on the couch – but ended up having to throw a big pat of the cream away. Oh well.

Stiff thick accidental cream that I had to throw away

Stiff thick accidental cream that I had to throw away

Part Two

Armed with lessons learnt from the humiliating defeat, I went at it again. Cleaned the beaker, spatula, teaspoon, stirring chopstick – an unenviable task – and restarted the process. Everything was carefully measured, and poured into the beaker. This time, I poured the boiling water into the bowl first before putting the oil beaker in, ensuring that I had a good grip on the beaker.

I stirred and stirred. The shea butter melted easily enough, and the beeswax took a little more persuasion. But at the end, everything melted into a light golden viscous liquid, and it was time to pour the mixture into the lip balm containers. As my hands are not the steadiest hands, I mobilised Leo to come help with the pouring.

Being very inexperienced and frankly, in retrospect, rather stupid – we used a small funnel to help with the pouring. As you might expect, the waxy oily liquid set very quickly and left a layer of residue inside the funnel. At the same time, the liquid was also solidifying on the mouth of the beaker. We managed to pour a smidgen in and were discussing a better course of action, when I asked Leo to stick the beaker back into the double boiler to stop the solidifying – and –

It capsized again!!! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!

In equal parts disbelief and dismay, we surveyed the damage. It was a deja vu of a beaker filled with oily hot water, with no resemblance to the final product it aspired to be. We had succeeded in pouring about 0.5cm of lip balm into the tube before the funnel discussion happened, and that was all that we had to show for the entire night of toil. And we had ruined a funnel, which till now is still waxy and oily despite of multiple attempts to clean it.

Less than 0.5cm of lip balm in a tube

Less than 0.5cm of lip balm in a tube

I was tempted to throw the mixture away there and then, but stopped when I considered the clogging that might happen. Cleaning a funnel may be annoying but a stuck pipe would probably be another world of pain. So I dejectedly left the beaker on the counter, crime scene untouched, and retreated to the safe space behind my computer screen. I would clean the mess up later, together with the shards of my shattered dignity.

Leo serenely picked up his work again, and I proceeded to give a blow-by-blow account of the second defeat to Eva through gchat.

Part Three

After an hour or so, bed time was approaching so I reluctantly went back to the disaster area to clean things up.

To my astonishment, the failed lip balm mixture had now separated into very clear layers of water and oil. I had a retrospective eureka moment – OF COURSE that would happen! Oil and water do not mix, and when the water cooled down the lip balm solution would also harden into a layer sitting on top of the water.

Water and oil do not mix

Water and oil do not mix

Cautiously, I ran a fingertip across the lip balm layer, and found that it glided very similarly to how it would if I were to glide it on real lip balm.

I sprang into action. I pricked two holes through the lip balm layer so that the sealed water could be poured out (two holes because the water would not pour if air could not enter to fill the void), and drained the water easily.

One hole for draining, one hole for air

One hole for draining, one hole for air

Boiled water again, for the umpteenth time, and filled the bowl with the boiled water to make a double boiler. Stuck the beaker in again. Stirred and stirred. The lip balm mixture melted easily back into liquid. It was looking good.

It was as though the oil and water debacle had never happened. (It did though. Twice.)

Leo came and helped again with the pouring process. This time we did not use the funnel, which turned out to be a completely redundant procedure, and filled up a tiny tub, and 2.5 tubes with the long-suffering lip balm solution.

It set beautifully. It feels a titch too oily on the lips, but that may be helpful in the cold and dry European weather that I’ll be experiencing in a couple of weeks. I’m also setting aside the Accidental Cream for that purpose.

Notes and thoughts

  1. Oil and water repel each other because water is a polar molecule, and oil is not. According to this link, “polarity is when one end is positively charged while the other end is negatively charged. Each water molecule is made of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. But the atoms are not arranged in a line. The two hydrogen atoms cling to one side of the oxygen atom making the molecule look something like a Mickey Mouse head. The electrons in the molecule spend more time on the oxygen side of the molecule, giving this side a negative charge and the hydrogen side a positive charge. Only other polar molecules can dissolve in water because polar molecules dissolve only in polar solvents and non-polar molecules dissolve only in non-polar solvents.”
  2. If I had more chemistry sense I’d probably remain calm in the first instance when disaster struck, because I’d then know immediately that I just had to set the mixture aside for an hour or two, drain the water and restart the process. I am a little embarrassed about missing the obvious, but the joy of seeing the water-oil separation when I had lost all hope makes it almost worthwhile!
  3. Cleaning oily things is annoying, but not half as annoying as cleaning oily AND waxy things. I’ve not given up on the oily and waxy funnel though. It’s a nice size and I’d like to salvage it. Note to self – never pour oily wax through a funnel.
  4. I guess I’d like to make another batch of lip balm that is less oily. I think that requires more beeswax and less oil, according to what I’ve read.
  5. Success is not a given, and failure actually teaches much more. More experiments lie on the horizon, more stupid mistakes to be made.
  6. Science rules, bitches. And it’s comforting to know, that however crazy the world is, and however you feel like the only sane person in a mad world sometimes – oil and water will always repel each other under normal conditions and without emulsifiers.

About a month ago when I was younger and more innocent, I made a hand lotion which to date seems to be holding up quite well, according to my mum whom I gifted the hand lotion to. The problems with the younger and more innocent version of the lotion is that 1) it did not contain any preservatives, which I have learnt that is an irresponsible thing to not include, and that 2) it did not go through the process of “heating and holding”, which is supposed to help with the emulsification process (oil + water) and to kill off unwanted bacteria, fungi, and other nasties.

So today, I have decided to be more diligent with my formulation and go through the proper procedures. It is a lovely Sunday afternoon. The below is written as I go through the formulation, real time.

Pre-experimentation

I must say that I am rather nervous. This time I’m not following a specific recipe, though I have read up quite a bit on what toners are and what ingredients a basic toner should contain. I’m working with a number of new things, from witch hazel to aloe vera to DMDM Hydantoin, which is a preservative. The more I read, the more nervous I get – so I’ve decided to stop reading and write down the pre-process, so that I can move straight into experimentation after the housemate has vacated the kitchen. This is the formulation that I have written down:

Water-based ingredients

  • 30% witch hazel distillate
  • 20% aloe vera liquid gel
  • 40% green tea (normal tea brewed from leaves)
  • 4% glycerin

Oil-based ingredients

  • 2% vitamin E
  • 2.5% solubiliser (Polysorbate 20)

Cool down phase:

  • 0.5% essential oil – lavender and tea tree oil, each 5 drops
  • ~0.2-0.6% preservative (DMDM Hydantoin)

This list is written based on the ingredients that I have at hand, and also loosely based on recipes that I’ve found online. My main guide is the Point of Interest blog, with its posts on toner; I also found these two recipes from Humble Bee and Me. As I don’t have all the ingredients that they prescribe, I’ve decided to make my own prescription, based on what basic theory I know.

The solubiliser (Polysorbate 20) binds the small amount of oils into the majority of water-based ingredients (witch hazel, aloe, green tea, glycerin) so that the oils (Vitamin E and the essential oils) are evenly dispersed in the mixture. It is much lighter than the emulsifying wax that I used in the previous hand lotion recipe. The amount used is supposed to be the same amount with the oils. The preservative is probably not the best one, but I only have this in my stock, so I will use it.

I don’t have a digital weighing scale, so if I were to be a perfectionist this project is failed from the beginning. Instead, I’ve decided to follow the percentages as closely as I can according to whatever tools that I have, which relies on volume instead of weight. I do have an alcohol thermometer so I can monitor the “heat and hold” temperature. The housemate has also left the kitchen so I have no more reason to procrastinate. I shall start now.

The action

I’m waiting for the 20 minutes heat and hold process now and thought I would just continue the documentation of the processes. Here’s what I did, mainly based on the recipe above:

  •  30ml witch hazel distillate
  • 20ml aloe vera liquid gel
  • 40ml green tea
  • ~5ml glycerin
  • ~2.5ml vitamin E
  • ~2.5ml solubiliser

The first four, the water-based ingredients, are in one container, while the oils (last two ingredients) are in another, both containers are in a water bath that is around 70deg C. I have to wait for 20 minutes, and then combine both containers into one, and then wait for them to drop to about 45deg C when I will put in my essential oils and preservative, as listed in the below three points:

  • 5 drops lavender oil
  • 5 drops tea tree oil
  • 10 drops DMDM Hydantoin

Once in while I’ll go check that everything is at 70deg C. If the temperature drops below that I’d turn on the stove and make it go a bit more. My thermometer is rested in the oil container, while I’ve put a cover on the water container to prevent too much evaporation. You’re supposed to heat and hold another very small batch of ingredients and then weigh the amount evaporated on the first batch, and replenish it with the backup batch. However I don’t have the digital weighing scale and no space in my pot for a third container, and I’m trying not to be too anal about things, so I’m just going to see whatever I have left.

One more minute to 20. I’ll go check the mixture.

Letting things cool down

It appears that quite a bit has evaporated, even if I did take the trouble to cover the water container. I guess this means that I should tweak the ingredients of the cooling down phase to be less than what I wanted to put in. The mixture that I have (according to a rather horrible beaker that doesn’t really give me an accurate reading) is in between 75-80ml.

After typing the above paragraph I went to check on the temperature of the solution and found that the solution had sneakily separated into oil and water! I realised that I forgot to stir it after mixing the contents of both containers. I then used a clean chopstick to stir quite vigorously, and at the moment it looks like the water-and-oil solution has regained its one-ness.

Adding of final ingredients

The mixture was looking at about ~70ml when the temperature hit 45degC. I adjusted the amount of cooling phase ingredients to reflect the change in volume, and put in 3 drops of tea tree oil and 3 drops of lavender essential oil, and about 7 drops of DMDM Hydantoin.

Then I stirred everything in again, and poured the slightly warm end product into a 100ml bottle, and gave it a vigorous shake or two. I must say that I’m kind of disappointed at the volume that I ended up with, at about 2/3 of the 100ml bottle only. After the shake the mixture has some froth (some head, in beer terminology) above, so I’m still waiting for the froth to go away and for the temperature to go down to room temperature so that I can try it.

Handmade toner

Voila! The toner itself

Notes

I’m still a little confused about the heating and holding process and I’m a little annoyed at all the good stuff that evaporated. Also, because I don’t know what actually evaporated (of that good 25-35% that disappeared), it makes troubleshooting harder. I later read that you’re supposed to stir the stuff while they are in the double boiler, which I did not, so I’ll need to remember the next time. But how do you do that without even more evaporation?

I haven’t tried the mixture so I can’t really say if it’s good or not. The emulsification seems ok so far. The froth has disappeared mostly but there is a small layer left still. Viscosity wise it’s thicker than water and thinner than most oils. While swirling the liquid around I notice that the part of the mixture right below the surface clouds up a little. Is that because of the froth, or because of failed emulsification? Or it’s just the properties of the liquid itself?

Some hours later

The cloudy effect is not so obvious now but I think it’s also the lighting that has changed since the afternoon, so I’ll have to observe again during daylight. The froth has disappeared.

The toner smells nice. I wet the cotton pad (with about 10-15 drops) and was able to swipe it all over my face – I used it once after coming back from a walk (before cleaning my face with a cleanser) and it did look a little dirty, so I surmise that it does the job of cleaning. Face feels nice and cool after using it, though it seems to have a slightly sticky (not oily) phase before it completely dries out. In any case I will use it for a few days and report back later.

This is my first attempt at making a hand lotion, inspired by this recipe by Humblebee and Me. As I did not have the exact same ingredients, I substituted the ingredients with whatever I had. The outcome was quite close to what I would consider a hand lotion to be (texture-wise), although I didn’t quite like the scent. My mum whom I gifted it to seemed to like it though.

First bottle of lotion I ever made

First bottle of lotion I ever made

Original recipe Ingredients I used
Oils
10g emulsimulse emulsifying wax
15g safflower oil

Water
73g water
2g vegetable glycerin
1 tsp raw honey or ½ tsp honey powder

To be added during cooling phase
5 drops French lavender essential oil
2 drops benzoin essential oil
1–2 drops litsea cubeba essential oil

Oils
I used olive-derived e-wax
Safflower oil was substituted with macadamia oil

Water
About 70g of rosemary tea instead of water,
Accidentally put too much glycerin – 4g
1tsp of raw honey

Cooling phase
5 drops of lavender
3 drops of rosemary

 

Original instructions:

Melt the emulsifying wax and safflower oil together in a small saucepan over low heat. While they melt, warm the water, vegetable glycerin, and honey in the microwave a little and stir to combine.

Once the oils are melted, add the water part and heat everything through. Remove from the heat and whisk as the mixture cools, until is is thick and creamy.

Notes:

I basically followed the instructions to a tee and the whole process of making the lotion took me less than 15 minutes. The outcome was about 75ml of hand lotion, probably due to the evaporation of liquids and also some waste while using the funnel to pour the mixture into a pump bottle.

Later on I read that you should “heat and hold” the water and oil mixtures for 20 minutes so that things would emulsify better and you would kill the nasties inside the raw materials. Here’s more information about heating and holding.

As you can see, there were no preservatives added to the lotion – which I’m a little wary about. I don’t want to go into the preservatives vs. non-preservatives debate but it seems that contamination is a real concern (and the anti-preservatives people seem a little alarmist), so I think it is better to preserve than not. At least when I make my own concoctions I know exactly how much preservatives go in and how they work.

As a result I’ve told my mum to finish the lotion within 1 month, or as quickly as she can – and I’ll make her more later on if she likes. I’ve ordered a broad spectrum preservative in my next batch of raw materials, hopefully it will arrive safely as it’s a supplier I’ve never bought from – and then I should be able to make safer products.

Check out also the new Cosmetics Science section in the website.