Breathing in the thick scent of warm glycerine, Ieni closed her eyes briefly in bliss. This was her favorite part of the week. When her adopted parents were out of the house for a date night, leaving the whole place to her. Not that she’d ever done anything to abuse their trust in her. All she ever ended up doing was putting on a CD of random drum beats and either reading or making soap.

And she could make a lot of soap in the few hours she was left alone.

Humming along with her music, Ieni bounded and slid around the kitchen, checking on a tray of setting soap here, heating up more glycerine there. With the holidays coming up, she wanted to be well ahead of the game when it came to having gifts prepared. And besides, once she had her soaps done, she wanted to try her hand at making lotions and shower gels. She already had all of her dyes and scents and other additives ready.

“Ah, there we go,” she murmured as the microwave dinged. Hurrying over, she removed the huge glass measuring up and briskly stirred the melting glycerine. “Lessee now, let’s try the Kiwi and Melon with you. Couple drops of aloe and this yellow green will be so pretty!”

Working happily, she soon had everything mixed and poured into molds to set. Wiping her hands off, she cleaned her equipment and went to fetch the small buckets of lotion and shower gel base. This was where things would get tricky since she had to carefully monitor temperatures. Still, it was something new to try and she was enamored of the idea of giving people gift baskets full of nicely matching toiletries. Deciding that she’d do the lotion first, she spooned a healthy measure of the base into her trusty measuring cup and put it into the microwave. Then, armed with the candy thermometer she’d bought, she went to work setting out the funnel and bottles.

Half an hour later, she had the first few batches of lotion capped and sitting off to the side to cool. The question now was did she want to use up the rest of the lotion base and then move on to the shower gel or quit now and do up some gel? After a few moments, she decided to just use up the rest of the lotion. It was more logical, after all.

By the time her parents got home, the kitchen was full of soft, delicate scents and the counters covered with soap molds and cooling bottles of lotion. Ieni herself was seated at the kitchen table, a smear of lotion on the tip of her nose, dozing. She’d washed every bit of equipment she’d used and set it all to dry in the racks near the sink. She roused herself long enough to smile at her parents before wishing them a good night and stumbling off to her room to clean up and throw herself into bed.