IN the rustic-looking soap shop called Sweet Summer Cottage on Jonker Street in Malacca, one can discover a fascinating range of handmade soaps, all created by a woman with a passion for making beautifully-scented soaps.

Koh Hui Fang

The owner is Koh Hui Fang, 55, who opened the shop in August last year. Although the business is doing fairly well these days, Koh shared that she had to struggle for a little bit in the beginning, citing the lack of awareness in the benefits of handmade soaps as one of the reasons.

Her daughter, Teo Ee Yin, 28, hopes to change all this by giving lessons on how to make handmade soaps to the public.

Ee Yin in the midst of making soaps

Every two to three months, Ee Yin and her family try to come up with new fragrances for their soaps. They take into account the local flavours when experimenting with new smells.

One of their soaps is actually inspired by the aroma of gula melaka! Koh’s son, Ee Shuian, 26, even said that they might even come up with a durian-scented soap!

The soaps, which do not contain chemicals, are sold in many kinds of shapes and sizes. Some of them don’t even look like regular soaps but more like candy and even cakes.

Some of the soaps available at the shop

Koh is fond of creating new designs for her soaps, like in shapes of ice cream cones, cocktail drinks, cookies and butterflies.

Koh and her family hope to expalnd their business to Kuala Lumpur one day and spread their knowledge on traditional soap-making.