Summer Vacation Soap

We spent a week on Lake Edwards in the Adirondacks.  I brought home lake water to make into soap (my Dad thinks that's nuts).  I have Pine Forest scent from Brambleberry.  I thought that would make a good soap with a memory of a good time.  

Sunday, we did a day trip to Ithaca and I saw Mrs. Meyer's Basil Soap at  Oasis Grocery.  We have basil oil that needs to be used up.  I think that basil and pine scents could work well together and basil is a very summery scent to me.  Basil supposedly has antioxidant and antimicrobial properties, as well as a calming effect and maybe even anti-acne potential. I'm not making medicinal claims, God only knows what lye will to to it.

I used the basic: olive oil, coconut oil, and lard recipe from the Everything Soapmaking Book by Alicia Grosso.  A 4# batch fits my wooden soap mold perfectly.  This is my first time using her recipes, mostly because I cannot find my Essentially Soap book.  I was crafting my own recipes with the Magestic Mountain Sage Lye Calculator but I was getting too adventurous and not really happy with the results.  So for a bit I am going back to tried and true recipes.  I'm also finding that you can get really great soap from recipes with a dozen fancy ingredients and you can get really great soap from really simple recipes with 3 ingredients that you can get off the shelf at a decent grocery store.

It went through gel phase but for a while it seemed really soft.  The color is a translucent yellow-beige and I like it.

I cut it tonight.  15 bars and scrap.  It is like waxy firm cheese.  It smells great and my hands lathered when I washed them after wards.  Interestingly, there is no ash.

The farmer says that it smells like the Adirondacks.  Works for me.