Country Living Crafting Soap at Home [Paperback]

Mike Hulbert (Author), Keith Scott Morton (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 28, 2003 | Series: Country Living

Here’s everything you need to know about creating fabulous fragrant and rich-lathering soaps that use only natural ingredients and essential oils. Whip up each batch using seven recipes for either the cold-process method or the melt-and-pour (or “hand-milled”) technique. Pamper the face with Patchouli Complexion Soap; bathe in the sensual aroma of a Sandalwood Body Bar. There are also recipes for laundry, dishwashing, and household cleansers.

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Hearst (March 28, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1588162583
• ISBN-13: 978-1588162588
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 8.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,127,617 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Surprisingly good!!, March 17, 2003

By 

Felix (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Country Living Crafting Soap at Home (Paperback)

I didn't really expect much when I read that it includes M&P recipes, but I was pleasantly surprised at how useful it looks!

Most of the book is concerned with recipes for CP soapmaking, with seven basic recipes (5 all veggie oil, one tallow, one goat-milk & veggie oil) and several specialty recipes. Without actually sitting down and counting recipes, I'd estimate that it's about 75% CP recipes, 22% rebatch/remilled CP recipes, and 3% M&P and other misc recipes. Lots of good photos of the soaps that are REAL - their rebatch pictures look like the lumpy weird soap I get when I rebatch, which I found to be refreshingly honest.

I haven't actually tried any of the recipes yet, but when I run them through online calculators they come up pretty good. I'll probably take 1-2% off the lye for several of the recipes to be at about 5-6% superfat, but there are a few I know I won't be changing.

Basic instructions looked good, accurate and concise, but might be a bit sparse for brand-new soapers if they have trouble following written instructions without any photos. Not a lot of charts and tables on the oils themselves, this is more of a recipe book than a reference book. Not a lot of pages are wasted on pictures of gloves and thermometers and little jars of oil - in fact there are no pictures of equpipment at all which I count as a plus...does anybody NOT know what a pair of gloves or a jar of olive oil looks like?

In addition to soap recipes, there are also a few stray recipes scattered in there for things such as hair rinse, laundry soap, bath tea, shower gel, how to infuse oils, dish soap, etc. All very simple, without a lot of bizarre or hard to find ingredients.

I was also happy to see that almost every recipe is vegetarian, and uses all natural ingredients. No synthetic fragrance oils or colorings are included in any of these recipes.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Soap Making Book, December 6, 2005

By 

Charlie (East Lansing, MI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Country Living Crafting Soap at Home (Paperback)

This book is my favorite soap recipe book. I purchased this book when I was beginning to make soap. The instructions are very clear. The recipes provided are wonderful. These are my favorite soap recipes so far. I would recommend this soap book to anyone interested in making soap. The authors also know a great deal about essential oils and healing properties. This book provides some of that information with the soap recipes as well. Happy soap making!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars great use, March 1, 2009

By 

Yams "YamY Jones" (Dom.Rep) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Country Living Crafting Soap at Home (Paperback)

i bought it used and it stll smells like cinammon great for doing all kinds of soaps!!!