Customer Reviews

Handmade Soap

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

These recipes call for too much organic material for the soap to be safe to use after 6 months. There seem to be several camps in soapmaking, the people who make soap to use it, the people who make soap to be creative and give it away/sell it, and then the people who make soap that satisfies some kind of oral thing they never got over (aka, the "soap that looks good enough to eat" crowd). This book of recipes falls into the "edible-looking soap" category. The only problem is that these recipes are problematic even for veteran soapmakers, due to their unrealistic amounts of non-soap organic ingredients such as honey, oatmeal and seaweed. Any experienced soapmaker who sells their wares will tell you that organic matter absorbs the water in recipes, that it will decay just like it would outside of the soap, and that a moist environment is the perfect breeding ground for bacteria (yes, even bacteria will flourish in soap). If that isn't enough to make you question the intelligence behind packing soap full of stuff that will decay eventually, think about your plumbing and the fact that this stuff will all go down the drain and possibly cause blockages, especially given the fact that homemade soap creates more deposits and scum in one's tub and pipes.

A very gorgeous book with inspiring pictures but the recipes given and techniques used should be for experienced soapmakers only. All the recipes are extremely lye heavy when run through a lye calculator. In addition, the botanicals used in the quantities stated require careful preservation and drying-I would not recommend curing in a humid enviroment. The fancy decorative aspect is neat but extremely useless and some downright painful-who would scrub their bodies with whole cloves-ouch! I have tried two of the recipes but modified to create a gentle product. We will see how it goes.

This was my first book on soap making, and although the pictures are beautiful I didn't learn enough to feel comfortable trying the recipes. I think this is a good book for getting your creative juices flowing, but unless you are experienced in soap making, you won't get much from this book. There is no in-depth explanation of oils, scents, colors, or anything. Actual instruction in soap making was two pages. No saponification tables, no rebatching instruction, and no discussion of different types of soap making (only cold process). Very vague about many things. I would not recommend this book for a beginner. For ideas and pretty pictures get this book.

Not really convinced about some of the measurements;
1.To much essential oil - makes the soap to overpowering .
2.lye reccomendations to high; ive run them through an online lye calculater to discover that they are abit excessive,and im convinced this is why ive ended up a couple of times with white chunks in my soap.
3.Alot of the food additives such as the Honey And oats are way to excessive in quantitys-I then found with time they went mouldy.
Nice array of ideas , just needed abit more fine tuning than it actually had.

As a soap maker I really loved this book. I've probably read all the soap books available on the market. This book has by far the best creative projects and is filled with lovely stylish pictures. It is an inspiration and really makes you want to make soap. Hill's book is hard bound and over all very elegant, yet is surprisingly the lowest priced soap making book I've come across. It would be nice to make some of your own soaps and give the book as a present along with them. I did this recently and it was really apreciated, because the person who gets the gift understands the effort going into your soap.
The book is also clear informative. I bought my first soap book about 6 years ago and I wish this one had been around then. I baught the most recommended soap making book and I was so confused I nearly gave up, before developing my own recipe through trial and error. If you really want to know about a lot of sceintific jargon, this book is probably not for you. For most normal home purposes Hill gives you the basic information you will need as a beginner, with simple "normal people's" language. The book has a quick bullet point format, rather than getting to technical. Again I wish had this as reference when I started. She also answers all the questions I had as a totally bewildered beginner in a section in the back. with simple "normal peoples" language. She also gives honest direct safety information and suggestions. *If you do need more detailed information about the chemistry side, you can always get one of the larger nore technical words only books.

This is the most unique and interesting book on handmade soap I have read. The recipes are all innovative and original and the pictures are the best. The book also successful in providing helpful step by step how to pictures that none of the other books I have seen provide. Hill's book is a welcome change from the various others that are copies of one another or seem to take one recipe and duplicate it from one page to the next with a few slight changes on sent or colour. The recipes are also 100% natural which I found refreshing. I would also like to refute another review from a soap maker from San Francisco that is more of an attack on the style of soap that Hill produces than a valid criticism. Hill's soap is a specific original style placing emphasis on natural ingredients as well as high emphasis the decorative presentation of the soap. As a soap maker I have produced soap successfully with even more botanical matter than Hill suggests with great skin conditioning results. If soap is dried and cured properly bacteria will not result any more than it would in a basic soap. The comment about clogging up drains from botanical matter is preposterous! Only small amounts of additives (oatmeal for example) come off of a bar of soap with each use and can wash easily down the waste pipes (far greater amounts of solid waste go down our kitchen and toilet waste pipes every day.) Perhaps the Californian just is not used to this innovative style of English soap making? As Hill is in a position as a professional soap maker with her obviously successful soap company Savonnerie that most of us would love to be in, she must be doing something right! BRAVO

I am continually drawn to this book. For those of us that need to create more than just a basic soap, this is a wonderful resource. Three basic cold process recipe bases are provided... the concept behind each recipe is: pure/natural. Yes, much of the soap is ideal for gift-giving with whole cloves pressed into the surface of one, gold leaf rubbed onto another, but some of us like to be cleaned luxuriously...that is the appeal for me. Soapmaking experience is required, I feel. If you have an artistic soul this book will encourage you to create. I only wish it were a longer book.

I was a little disappointed in this book. I was looking for tips and ideas, and the majority of the book is recipes. But if that's what you are looking for, then the book is beautifully done, and the photographs are great.

A very artistic book with 15 vegetable oil-based recipes. No synthetic ingredients are used in these unusual and luxurious cold process soaps. A beautiful, hand-milled seaweed soap is included. Excellent color photographs throughout, with step-by-step instructions for basic soapmaking. Troubleshooting advice is provided, yet this book is not for beginners. None of the projects are inexpensive and all of them are labor-intensive as shown. Familiarity with essential oils is required due to occasional use of potential irritants such as clove, cinnamon and benzoin. However, these recipes are a welcome relief from the humdrum stuff that's normally seen. Any unacceptable additives can easily be changed by experienced soapers. The only other recipe book that doesn't bore me is British as well: "the handmade soap book" by Melinda Coss. Also sold by Amazon.

Handmade Soap by Tatyana Hill
There are three basic soap recipes given in this book and 14 variations. Measurements are in both metric and American Standard.
-Note: while I have not tried any of these variations, some of them do sound interesting.

Ms. Hill has a listing of nine natural colorants, but she does not explain what these colorants will do in a finished soap.

Safety issues are dealt with fairly well, but I personally wouldn't recommend using vinegar to clean lye flakes off of your skin. Rinse well with running water, but using vinegar in a lye flake that is sitting on naked skin will hurt more that the lye bead by itself. Use the vinegar to clean up lye on your counters, not your skin.

In the back of the book there is a short list of suppliers in the UK, USA, and Australia. It is not a big list, but it is a place to start.

Overall, an ok book, but it is a bit lacking in information.