Susanna J. Sturgis   Martha's Vineyard writer and editor
writer editor born-again horse girl

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Saddle Soap

June 26, 2007

Last night I made saddle soap. No, I didn't start from scratch, with lye and lard and all that good stuff. The recipe, which I learned from a two-barns-ago barnmate, goes like this:

Ingredients
2 four-ounce bars glycerine soap (any flavor)
1/2 cup whole milk
1/4 cup leather conditioner (e.g., neat's-foot oil)

Procedure
Melt soap in double boiler. Whisk in milk and conditioner. Pour into ricotta cheese (or other approx. 15-ounce) tub. Let cool until solid. Cover and store till needed.

I like colors, but the odor of two strawberries, two lilacs, or a blackberry and a jasmine can be pretty cloying, so for each batch I use one flavored bar and one clear. Used to be I could find 99-cent bars of glycerine soap at Cronig's supermarket. Now the cheapest bar of soap at Cronig's costs more than three bucks and it has all sorts of stuff in it, like herbs and oatmeal and cream from non-BGH cows. The recipe works fine if you use a standard 10-ounce bar of glycerine saddle soap and augment the other ingredients accordingly (you can do the math; I know you can), but the soap comes out a boring tan color. So I went online, found the glycerine soap that Cronig's no longer carries, and started buying it in mix-and-match cases of 24. The manufacturer has since been bought out by a larger company, but the soap hasn't changed. The price, however, has gone up a bit, and now I get occasional e-mails announcing sales on citrus facials and such.

I've taken to using the glycerine soap by the kitchen sink and in the shower. I stopped using clear soap in the shower because when it fell off the shelf I had to feel around with my foot until I found it. Without my glasses on or contacts in, I can barely find my feet in the shower, never mind a clear bar of soap. Whenever I make saddle soap, I toss all the soap slivers and the last bits of saddle soap from previous batches into the double boiler. They become part of the new batch. This makes me feel healthier and more virtuous than a $3 bar of bath soap ever could.

 

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