The Complete Soapmaker: Tips, Techniques, & Recipes for Luxurious Handmade Soaps: Amazon.ca: Norma Coney: Books

Product Description

From Library Journal

Soapmaking, once a practical necessity for the homemaker, has almost passed out of the repertoire of home crafts. Nevertheless, one can still make homemade soap with delightful fragrances and interesting textures. This book provides detailed instructions and recipes for basic lye soaps made with animal or vegetable fats and for hand-milled and specialty soaps using almond meal, chamomile, glycerin, and milk that expand on those basic formulas. Shampoos and liquid soaps are covered as well.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description

The age old craft of soapmaking is easy using today's techniques. More than 50 hand-milled soap recipes are included in this book, giving the reader every step of the process, from choosing equipment to creating fancy forms and scents.

See all Product Description

Tag this product

(What's this?)

Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.

Customer Reviews

33 Reviews

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

Average Customer Review

3.6 out of 5 stars (33 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most helpful customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Better than many others that I have read, May 3 2003

By

J. MITCHELL "utah reader" (Utah, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Complete Soapmaker: Tips, Techniques & Recipes for Luxurious Handmade Soaps (Paperback)

This is one of the better books that I have read on soapmaking. Other authors (that I will not name) talk at length about the history of soap and their own companies whereas this book actually focuses on the info you need---how to make soap. It has about 6 recipes for making cold process soap (lye and fats/oils) and then about 20 recipes for hand milled soaps (where you use the cold process soap that has already been made and melt it down then add herbal ingrediants or whatever you want to add) It also has more information regarding good molds to use than all the other books that I have read. There is a list of sopamaking terms that are helpful. Pictures are nice and I think would be helpful for the first time soap maker. I wish this was the book that I read while I was just beginning.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good, Mar 13 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Complete Soapmaker: Tips, Techniques & Recipes for Luxurious Handmade Soaps (Paperback)

First, I want to mention that in my edition, she has corrected the instructions regarding adding lye to water. Mine clearly states to add the lye to the water, which is the correct (safe) way.

After running her recipes through an online calculator, I agree that they're a bit heavy on the lye. She has zero superfatting, which for a beginner seems a little risky - if you short your oils at all your soap might turn out too caustic. I also reduce the water in her recipes by about 20% unless I'm using a fragrance oil prone to siezing. So I recommend taking her recipes and running them through a good online lye calculator and deciding for yourself if you want to reduce these - I generally use a 5% lye discount and have had great results.

This book focuses rather heavily on rebatching. Personally I enjoy rebatching but many soapers consider it a nightmare and reserve it only for failed batches. So just be aware that this book is a little shy on base soap recipes, but great if you're looking for rebatching recipes.

I also have an aversion to using tallow or other animal products, and there are only 2 base soaps that are all veggie. I would have liked to see more all-veggie recipes.

Overall I think it's a pretty good book, and I'll be keeping my copy. I just write in my own water and lye amounts. :)

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

1.0 out of 5 stars Inaccurate and misleading ESPECIALLY dangerous for beginners, Feb 17 2003

By

Leann Blackey (Illinois, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Soapmaker: Tips, Techniques & Recipes for Luxurious Handmade Soaps (Paperback)

One of many soapmaking books I purchased when beginning soapmaking. Thankfully, it isn't the first one I actually used. She warns on page 34-- "don't make the mistake of adding the lye to the water" when the correct method is EXACTLY the opposite --or a SERIOUS explosion/reaction can happen. The recipes are also very "lye heavy" and she confuses "handmilling" with what soapmakers term "rebatching". I'm very concerned that this book comes highly recommended on many web sites for beginners to soapmaking. There are many better books out there that are much more informative AND accurate!! Hot and cold process soapmaking isn't teribly difficult and very rewarding, but when working with caustic chemicals, one should be well-informed. This book could seriously mislead someone.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 33 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

Want to see more reviews on this item?

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 68 reviews 3.5 out of 5 stars

Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars simple and creative
When I first started to search for soap making books, there were just too many. After ordering a few of them, I decided that this one was THE ONE. Read more

Published on Jan 15 2003 by Lara Barbosa

1.0 out of 5 stars Misleading and poor value
Superficially this looks like a good book, however the appearance is misleading. The recipes do not produce good soap and the instructions for re-batching produce rather... Read more

Published on Dec 7 2002 by moonpigge