Jill Spruance mixes soap ingredients, left, which include milk from her goats, right. Below, after pouring the soap into a wooden mold, she creates a decorative swirl before the soap begins to cure.
The spunky goat micro-herd or tribe has grown from two tomore than a dozen “girls” withwhimsical names such as Maid Marian, Lady and Cricket. These are the frontlinemembers of the team—and the literal inspiration behind the companymotto: “Go theWay of theGoat.” Jill is the driving force behind Basilwood Farm. The Spruances have lived on the rolling acreage for about 26 years, and it is the place where she homeschooled their two daughters while Kim worked as a winemaker. Jill serves as chief soap-maker, marketing guru and creator behind products that blend goat’smilkwith other natural ingredients such as cocoa butter, locally sourced olive oil, coconut oil and even coffee butter. Each bar of soap contains about 20%goat’s milk, and the website points out that goat’s milk contains natural alpha-hydroxy acids—a common ingredient in some facial creams and moisturizers—that help slough off dead skin and encourage the growth of new cells. Goat’s milk also is rich in a variety of vitamins that help heal the skin and pair well with natural oils and butters. Fromsoaps to bath bombs The heart of Basilwood Farm manufacturing is the “soap room,” an airy workshop where colorfully swirled bars sit curing or parked for future sale alongside rows and rows of products on metal shelves. The most important
book here is the green binder titled “Jill’s Recipes.” Those formulas unfold in diverse lines such as Caeden’s Choice, a fragrance- and color-free bar named for the Spruances’ first grandson; California Dreamin’, a swirl of bright colors with hints of sage and mint; and Glamping, a blend of pine and citrus. New scents are introduced regularly, such as Birchwood (woodsy) and GrandpaMac’s Pipe Tobacco and Cashmere (named for the scent memory of Jill’s grandfather). She uses a cold process method of soap-making that relies on lye to produce the necessary chemical reaction, known as saponification. Lye (which disappears in the process), oils or butters, raw goat’s milk and any color and scent are combined and then poured intowoodenmolds, artfully stirred to produce decorative swirls in some varieties and cured or hardened for as long as a month. Bars are cut, edged or smoothed and then ready for packaging and sale. On “megabatch” days, Jill and Shelby typically produce 640 to 720 bars of soap, an efficiency that has helped them keep pace with demand. Shelbymakes the other products except for bath bombs, which are Kim’s province. “Bath bombs are persnickety,” Jill said. “That’s why I make soap.” Kim holds a bachelor’s degree in viticulture and enology from California State University, Fresno. His
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September/October 2021
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