Useful resources for Handmade Soap

Handmade Soap Making Books

I have many aspiring crafters ask where to get recipes and how to get started. There are many books about soap many available, so which one to choose. First go to Amazon and search "soap making". Now go through the list and read all of the reviews. This is the fastest way to get a good soap recipe. The authors many times will review their own recipes for you. If you see a comment such as "this is a rich recipe", you have your choice right there. Use their experience and kno owledge to get started. You can always make adjustments to the rexipe and make the reipe your own down the road.

The first book on the list is "Smart Soapmaking" by Anne L Watson. This a best seller for reason. It is a great starter book but I would not recipes from this book because of here cavalier attitude toward measurements. Great for beginners and for getting inspiration and new ideas, but please look for another book from which to get your recipes. This book is available used for about $12.00, you can get this one as reference and keep it handy for cool ideas.

The next book "Soapmaker's Companion" by Susan Miller Cavitch is a comprehensive guide to making everything bath and body. There is a plethora of recipes here and I would recommend starting out with thye simplest ones. This has always been my advice as you can always add to your reipe once you have found a recipe that has a great base. When I say great base I mean the three major oils "by weight" make a great soap on their own Then adding secondary oils is breeze. Try this with Susan's recipes and I'm sure you will come up with your own awesome signature

The Everything Soapmaking Book, by Alicia Grosso is an interesting book. This book covers a great amount of soap making techniques not available in other books and is very good about answersing questions the sopamker has as they go through the soap making process. There are not a lot of illustrations or photos that can greatly help a book like this that is trying to answer specific procedural aspects of asoapmaking. This is another book I recommend that you should have as a reference guide for soap making questions.

The last book I am reviewing to day is "Soap: Making It, Enjoying It" by Ann Bramson. This an older book, 1975, where a lot of information has been improved and updated since this book was writte. I would say save your money on this one and get a book that has been published more recently, because of improvements in soap making technologies(think recipes).

What is your favorite book to get recipes and soap making ideas from? Have you written your own soap making book Please let us know and we will give you a free link to your book from this page.

Article provided by Jeffrey Dorrian