“Cooling Face Power” is perhaps the best ingredient against Penang’s sweltering heat. It is made out of broken white rice, just like the kway teow or broadsheet noodles you would have eaten when savouring the city’s famous char kway teow.

The rice is first washed and soaked, and then left to ferment for a month in this home factory. When ready, they are rinsed to rid off the pungent and acidic smell before they enter a stone grinder to become rice milk. This is then transferred into muslin bags for most of the moisture to drain away in about 10 hours.

The filtered rice milk is reconstituted to make a paste outside the factory’s porch. They are squeezed through a perforated metal container to become flat-bottomed teardrops just like Hershey’s Kisses.

We take a few of these dried pellets, blend them with water, and apply it on our skin. As its name suggests, it feels cooling. But it does more. A century ago, women in China made this powder at home to ease rashes and control facial oil. The 76-year-old founder of this business turned his mother’s beauty recipe into a means of living after he migrated from Fujian to Penang.

The founder has passed the business to his two sons, but he still carries out the lighter chores.

Moulding the rice paste is similar to silk screen printing.

Teardrop-shaped rice paste just out of the mould.

H Directory

Perniagaan Bedak Sejuk Lean Seng

160 Mukim-D, Kuala Jalan Bharu, 11000 Balik Pulau
Tel: +60 19 481 1810
Open 8am to 8pm, daily.