It's been a year-long dream of mine to make mastic soap, and the cooler temperatures outside were encouraging me to finally do it. Now that all the mastic bushes got a nice shower from the rain, and it wasn't so crazy humid I didn't need to worry about my face melting off and saponifying with the caustic soda fumes... Which seems quite feasible in 90% humidity. 

I worked with the mastic leaves in both the oil phase and the water phase, and both with the leaves and branches (which I steamed in the water; as well as infused in oil for about a month). The resin had to be pounded into the finest powder humanly possible, using marble mortar and pestle, and then infused in gently warmed olive oil for the course of several hours.