Formulas and base materials
Công thức và nguyên liệu nền 処方と基材Fifteen pieces on what goes into a bar of Lê Mai cold process soap and a bottle of body oil: base oils, butters, essential oils, additives, colour, and the six weeks of curing between them.
The series begins with a batch of soap: oils warmed to 38 to 40°C meet the lye solution, pass through gel phase, then rest on a rack for six weeks. From there each piece takes one material: sweet almond and olive oil for lather and softness, cocoa butter and shea for hardness, neem and tamanu oil for their own scent and colour, coffee, wine, beer, milk, spirulina, turmeric, activated charcoal, and essential oils passing through the lye pot.
The last part turns to body oils: sweet almond, jojoba and fractionated coconut as carriers, then the formulas for body oil and massage oil. Every piece reads its material through fatty acids, molecules and the figures in the Lê Mai library, and records about products only what the product page records.