Soap

I wash my hands a lot. That's the fallout from cooking dinner six nights a week, gardening, walking the dogs, picking up their poop, and being the parent of a medical student (what I know about pathogens is frightening!). Because of all that, my hands are plunged in hot water and soap a fair amount.

So I love a good bar of soap. These are some of my favorites.

Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps. Available at my local grocery store. I like the old-fashioned typography all over the low-tech paper wrappers.

The lavendar and peppermint scents are so strong, the empty packages still smell wonderful two days after I've unwrapped the bars.

Inside, the bars are straightforward looking. No colors or odd things to distract from their honest goodness.

This soap, below, is made by a vendor at my local farmers' market. She makes dozens of kinds, but I keep going back for this one.

It smells like clear, blue, fresh water. And the color! Oh, how I love the color. I put a bar of this in the guest bathroom, and it's better than potpourri or a scented candle at sweetening the air.

I'd never tried this liquid soap, below, until I was on a recent vacation to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The Chatham Bars Inn stocks a line of L'Occitane products--soaps, shampoos, and such--in its guest cottages. This big, handsome boy is Verbena scented--a citrus-y smell, like lemons or lemongrass. It's pricey--I paid about $23 for a 500-ml pump, but it will last a long time:

And I love that the label is printed with Braille. See the bumps?:

Liquid gold.

Makes hand washing pure pleasure.