Relay for Life

More than 10 years ago, my mother contracted liver cancer, it happened not long after my maternal grandmother died of the same disease. From that moment, our family braced through the most difficult and challenging period of our lives, as we could not grasp and understand the situation my mother had to go through.

Today, she brought me to The National Cancer Society office in Kampung Baru, my mother will participate by promoting healthier meals at NCSM's 16 hours Relay for Life this weekend at the Bukit Jalil stadium, hoping to give an idea of a healthier lifestyle to cancer survivors or their families. For years she has been advocating organic food/natural and changing lifestyle to combat cancer.

I will be there as well. Yuan soap will participate too and 20% of proceeds will go to NCSM. But the real support would be having you to help celebrate lives whether for those who had battled cancer or survived, remember those who had lost the battles yet survived in our memories and let us fight back with more knowledge and support.

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From the official website of The National Cancer Society

CANCER IS THE NUMBER ONE KILLER DISEASE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES.

By 2020 it is expected that there would be 15 million new cancer cases worldwide. This means that by 2020; every family will have at least one member suffering from cancer - your parent, your spouse, your sibling or even your child.

You see, cancer can hit anyone at any age. We don't know who it will strike at and when. But we do know for sure that if we do not take action now to educate ourselves on cancer and to do all we can to eradicate this disease; it may be too late.

The National Cancer Society of Malaysia would like to invite YOU to join the fight against cancer by participating in the Relay for Life Kuala Lumpur 2009, from 30th - 31st May at the MSN Training Stadium, Bukit Jalil.RFL is 16 hours of non-stop fun and excitement, where teams of people of all ages and from all walks of life come together for this noble cause by camping out at the stadium and taking turns walking or running around the track. This will be our third year organizing RFL.

In 2007 and 2008, RFL KL attracted over 3,000 and 5,000 participants respectively. This year, WITH YOUR PARTICIPATION we hope to bring in even more participants.

With our tagline Celebrate. Remember. Fight Back! RFL KL offers every one of us the opportunity to participate in the fight against cancer.

- We Celebrate the lives of those who have battled cancer and find solace and inspiration in the strength of the survivors as we continue the fight.- We Remember loved ones who have fallen in their fight, at the Relay we walk side by side with people battling cancer to commiserate and find healing.- We Fight Back! By participating in the Relay we aim to raise the bar on the awareness of cancer and put an end to the disease.

Since 1966, National Cancer Society Malaysia (NCSM) has been an active force in advancing the cancer cause in Malaysia. NCSM is the only NGO to offer a holistic range of cancer services in Malaysia at subsidized rates, or in certain cases; at no cost. Our mission is to Educate, Care and Support cancer patients in Malaysia. Through RFL, NCSM will continue to provide such services to the public as such:

Fundraising

The funds raised for RFL KL 2009 will be used for the upgrading of equipment and facilities at our Cancer Treatment Centre (CTC). This will enable NCSM to provide efficient, quality services with state-of-the-art facilities to patients.

Awareness

We hope that this event will bring about an all-encompassing awareness on cancer so that the general public understands the importance of early detection and screening to reduce the risk of cancer.It is also to bring home the point that even if one is afflicted with cancer or is caring for a cancer patient, life is still something to be celebrated.

We provide programmes to reduce cancer risks, detect cancer early, ensure proper treatment and empower people facing cancer to maintain the highest quality of life. We also facilitate post cancer treatment and support mechanisms. Through our services and campaigns such as Relay for Life we have seen many lives changed for the better.

For further details, kindly contact Clare / Elizabeth at Tel: 03-26927705 / 03 - 26987300 or email RFL@cancer.org.my.

Box set

What do you think of these box sets? Very traditional design.

Would you buy these?

Same soap same weight but they are round. More expensive as they need more (hand)time to actually produce these soaps.

I have lots of enquiries regarding these soap balls. These are the ones which you can hang it next to your wash basin in the bathroom for hand wash. However the reasons why its still not here yet its because of the price. It is priced at more than 300NT (can't remember the exact price), roughly converted to more than RM30.

Handmade soap vs industrial soap

Something I found online which is easy to understand and know more about handmade soaps.

Handmade Soap vs Industrial Soap

Skin health problems make people who concern start to seek for alternative for their skin treatment. The chemical substances contained in so many skin care products, including soaps, make people start to use handmade soap that is safer than the industrial soap. However, it doesn't mean that industrial soap is not healthy for your skin. In fact, there are several differences that make handmade soaps is better than the industrial soap.

Before we discuss about the differences between handmade soap and industrial soap, we need to define the term of industrial and handmade soap first. The term handmade soap refers to the soaps that can be made at home and mostly are made of natural ingredients like olive or jojoba oil. The making process is also simpler because the supporting tools are unadorned. On the other hand, the term industrial soap refers to the soap that is made by soap companies in large quantities. It usually contains little amount of oil and limited amount of vitamin since it is made mainly for commercial purpose.

Those two kinds of soap are also different in the making process. Handmade soap is made in cold process soap while industrial soap is in hot process soap. Cold soap making process is implemented in cold room temperature. So, it makes the oil nutrients useful for the skin is still intact. The hot soap making process needs 80-100°C until the saponification phase occurs. Saponification is the process of mixing the water, lye and fat or oil(note from me: Yuan soap uses no sodium peroxide, something similar but costlier and natural). One thing that cannot be denied is that both kinds of soap are using lye or sodium hydroxide in the making process; it is the substance that can turn oil into soap. But when the making process is done, there is no lye left in handmade soap because in the first moment of saponifying reaction, nearly 90% of the lye is eliminated and in the next process the lye is totally gone.

The significant difference between industrial and handmade soap is the glycerin content. Glycerin is the clear liquid that absorbs water from the air. It can soften the skin and keep its health. In handmade soap, the glycerin is kept and formed naturally during the saponification process. As in industrial soap, soap companies usually reduce the glycerin and put it into lotion products. Handmade soap is more skin-friendly than the industrial soap. Therefore, handmade soap is more effective for skin treatment.

by Ricardo Lubis (taken from http://www.purehandmadesoap.com/)

The difference between other handmade soaps and Yuan soaps is we incorporated herbal recipes and wisdom from our ancestors who had used them (and found them effective) from generations. Pleasing no one with synthetic fragrances, colours and shapes.

New Yuan Soap Store - Soon!

Stay tuned on this space as we will unveiled our latest project soon!

Job vacancies on sales are available at our new outlet at the Central Market. Please write to me if anyone is interested with/without any sales experiences. Reach me at reese(dot)ong@gmail(dot)com

Earth Day Carnival Part 2

The whole team behind Yuan soap for the Earth Day Carnival 2009
From left, Kelvin, Eric, Me, Zoey and James



With our booth neighbour/ dealer, Michelle and Noor from Bodybar, Tropicana.



Zoey and I fooling around at the MYFM studio while Yuan busy chatting with the DJ Phoebe.

Yuan soap in Kuantan soon!

Yuan soap will be available soon

at

THE ORGANIC VILLAGE
B-608, LOWER GROUND
JALAN AIR PUTIH , 25300
KUANTAN, PAHANG DARUL MAKMUR

T/F: 09-567 2904
Mrs Ow

Happy Mother's Day!

Penned by Yuan, himself to all the mothers in the world.

Story from Yuan

When Yuan visited Malaysia weeks back to celebrate the Earth Day with us, he brought us some gifts. The limited Mother's Day gift set from Taiwan!

The gorgeous flower prints on the box and the natural cotton unbleached bag got me a bit sad of the fact I can't share it with Malaysian's Yuan soap fans.

However, that's not the gift I was talking about, its the story of the natural cotton unbleached bag. There's a little note tied to each of the bags which tells the story of Yuan who was in Tainan 2 months ago. There he met this loud mouthed but friendly boss, Mr Hui of a workshop that produce cotton bags.

Due to the business competition from China, Mr Hui does not even mind to sew just one bag for any customers. Yuan's 1000 bags were his largest order to date, this is to ensure that handmade businesses can still survive despite companies cutting and saving costs by going to larger factories with machines. The bag display no large branding of Yuan soap but the name of the workshop instead "合成布袋行“literally translated to "He Chen Cloth Bags", and proudly mentioned that it was made in Taiwan.

Touched after listenning to the story from Yuan (of course, he told it more vividly than my amanteurish translation), James and Zoey, my colleagues from Singapore challenged me to incorporate elements of Malaysia into our future gift sets as how Yuan did.

So what elements distinctly reminds you of Malaysia?

Listen to Yuan on air

Yuan will be on 988 radio station this Saturday (May 9th) 8am to 9amon "Halo Boss" . Log on to www.988.com.my for those who want to listen online.

Earth Carnival Part 1

This cool Japanese bonyari drummed messages like "reuse, reduce, recyle" and "arigato" to the crowd.

The soap set we specially brought in for the fair, mandarin orange soap, forest pine and auspicious soap. You get a free dead sea mud pack from buying this set. Most bought one for the coming Mohter's day.

Our little booth.