One of the finest television shows I’ve had the pleasure watching over the past 11 years has been Farscape.
Starting way back in 1999 and ending in 2003, it was a rollercoaster of a show featuring the adventures of US astronaut John Crichton stranded in space on board a living spaceship with a bunch of alien “criminals”. His mission: to find his way back home.
The show featured creatures created by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop (initially headed up by Jamie Courtier, who I had the privilege of meeting at a book signing sometime in the late 90s prior to Farscape started shooting in Australia) and the whole look and feel of the show was very different to anything that came before it.
Well, with the possible exception of Gerry Anderson’s Space Precinct which features creatures from Doctor Who’s Neil Gorton – but the whole show was absolutely terrible from an acting and writing perspective.
Somewhat ironically, John Glen who directed one of the episodes of Space Precinct also directed the person whom I’m about to mention (in The Living Daylights).
Anyway, Farscape featured Virginia Hey, an Australian actress whose acting career has spanned three decades in a variety of interesting and often unusual roles. If there’s one thing about Virginia, she’s never played a dull character.
In Farscape she plays Pa’u Zotoh Zhaan, an alien character with a dangerous past, on the run from the authorities. She’s blue. She’s a priestess. She’s a healer. She’s sensual. And often the most level-headed character in the show.
Farscape ran for four seasons and a movie-length finale. As the make-up for Zhaan was extremely extensive, Virginia unfortunately suffered health related problems which forced her to leave the show in order to recover.
This sort of thing in the film and tv industry – I remember reading about legendary make-up effects pioneer Dick Smith’s son who was highly allergic to the chemicals in his father’s workshop. This prevented him from pursuing a similar career.
As Farscape ended just over 11 years ago, I’ve not seen much of Virgina on screen. But what with my recent interest in sci-fi conventions – Facebook suggested I show follow Virginia Hey and that’s when I discovered (via LinkedIn) that she’s been a business owner for a very long time hand-making soaps and fragrances via White Flower Lei.
I was curious, and decided to buy a soap to try. I tend to buy Lynx products almost exclusively these days – sprays, shower gels, etc. I use antibacterial hand gel for everything else.
I bought a frankincense and leather soap. It was the day before the start of the Easter bank holiday weekend, but a few hours later after placing the order, I received an email from Virginia to say that she had made the soap and was going off to post it that afternoon. I had the soap sent to work.
On the Tuesday the soap arrived and took it home to give it a spin.
The presentation of the soap is excellent. It came packaged in a small box with plenty of protection – therefore it won’t fit through a letterbox (so I’m glad I was able to have it sent to the office).
When you open the box you receive a business card along with the soap itself. The soap is very well packaged (see image above) and even then the smell is apparent – it’s a good strong smell that isn’t overpowering. It hits the spot nicely.
The soap itself looks almost good enough to eat (making the phrase, “wash your mouth out with soap” very tempting).
The soap has replaced my usual hand wash and it lathers nicely with minimum amount of water. That said, it’s been used a lot over the past month and I’m going to need to buy a replacement soon.
Thankfully there are plenty of other soaps on offer, so I’m going to try the others that Virginia has on offer.
I therefore highly recommend Virginia Hey’s White Flower Lei - not just for yourself, but they make excellent gifts for loved ones. Both male and female.
And let’s see Virginia back on the screen again.
