Make a clean sweep of this weekend's second annual Made in Hawaii Festival with fragrant handmade soaps. The Soap Box presents "all natural" soaps in scents of cinnamon, lavender, lemongrass, mint and patchouli, plus scent-free oatmeal. A tropical line features scents of 'awapuhi (ginger blossom), coconut, mango and pineapple. Natural soaps
make lots of scentsSoapmaker Steve Cromwell, a 16-year chef at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki hotel, said, "Once you use a natural bar of soap, you'll never use a bar of Dove, Palmolive or Irish Spring again. I'll never stop making my soap or buy another commercial bar of soap; the whole feeling is different when you're in the shower."
Cromwell's collaborator in The Soap Box operation is Jo Ann Takushi, a legal secretary.
Their soaps are available at A Crafter's Dream, The Following Sea, The New Season, Crescent Gallery and Tropical Clay. At the festival, a bar costs $3.
The Made In Hawaii Festival also features Maui Tropical Soaps, whose bars are made of crushed flowerheads and macadamia and kukui oils. A bar is $5. The Valley Isle firm also offers gift baskets, bath teas and Hawaiian dream pillows.
The Made In Hawaii Festival at the Blaisdell Exhibition Hall features more than 250 vendors, entertainment, cooking demonstrations, and samplings of foods ranging from Molokai Bread to coffees, cookies, ice cream, preserves, salsas and smoked fish.
Hours for the three-day fest are noon to 9 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday; and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $2. Dollar-off coupons are available at First Hawaiian Bank's Oahu branches. Call 533-1291.
By Catherine Kekoa Enomoto, Star-Bulletin