Customer Reviews

Handmade Soap: Recipes For Crafting Soap At Home ( Country Living)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

My first batch of soap was from the basic #4 recipe in this book. It came out great. It made nice hard bars with a good lather and excellent cleaning properties. Though this is not the "end all, be all" of soap books, it is very good. The only caveat is that the recipes with frangrances or essential oils are a bit heavy on the nose. I recommend halving the essential oil requirements to achive a soap that isn't overpowering. This is a book for the beginner and is not technichal in nature. Professional soapmakers should look elswhere for comprhensive lists of what can go wrong and how to fix it. Most recipes here make a two to three pound batch, which hardly qualifies as huge quantities. I recommend this book to any beginners out there who just want to get started without becoming master soapmakers on the first go.

I have been operating a soap making business for 2 years and never tire of the process. Visually, I thought the book was beautiful; however, it's not one I'd recommend to beginners who really need to understand the process as well as a more thorough run-down of pitfalls and dangers. I am also very concerned with safety for the soap maker and the end-user. I thought that in reviewing the recipes, some of them seemed lye excessive. Also, excessive in the amounts of pure essential oils he recommends per each batch. They may smell wonderful but many of us know the potential dangers of irritation and sensitization. Experienced soap makers could play with his recipes and make proper adjustments for safety and quality; however, a beginner won't know any better. I recommend choosing another book such as the Natural Soap Book and of Soap Makers Companion by Miller-Cavitch for starters.

This book has a potentially dangerous typo! The recipe on page 101 calls for 15.9 ounces of lye when it should be 5.9. This much lye will overheat, probably boil over, and could possibly explode. It's something an experienced soap maker would never do, but a beginner could get hurt.

Other than that I really like the book. It has good basic cold-process recipes and interesting rebatching ideas. I have it from the library, and plan to buy it.

I checked out 5 different books from the library to resurch soapmaking before I ever tried making a batch and this is the book I chose to purchase. I am very pleased with the recipes and have made three batches from this book alone. BUT, I have to say that I had the benefit of other books to refer to as well. As much as I like this book (easy to follow instructions, beautiful photos, great results) I found better step-by-step instructions for the beginner in The Complete Soapmaker. I liked the recipes in Country Living better though. They are both great and I recommend them as a complement to each other for the beginner. I would say this is a must-have book for a soapmaker.

This was the first book I bought when I began learning to makesoap, and it's really the only one I've actually purchased even afterthese six months I've been making soap. I look through other soap making books and am so dismayed by the horrible, dry looking soaps they present. I tend to quickly look through these other books for information, but I don't buy. The soaps in this Country Living book come out nicely though. I have made probably half the recipes in the book and have been very pleased. However, I have had to do much of my learning on the internet and from asking questions of other soapers. There is no information on colorants or saponification values included in this book. An encyclopedia of soap making it is not; but if a person's looking for reliable, nice looking, body friendly soap recipes, this is a good book. There are also no recipes using the more commonly found fats such as hydrogenated soybean oil, canola, safflower, lard, etc. Coconut, palm, olive, and castor oils are the most commonly used oils in this book.

One thing not mentioned in the book is how helpful a hand blender is. The author recommends hand stirring the fat/lye mixture to trace, but it's so much quicker with a hand blender like the Braun. Who wants to be standing over a lye/water/fat mixture longer than they have to? ....

So this is a book I'd recommend. Have fun but plan on checking out other sources for answers to questions you will have as your soaping continues. There are so many recipes available from other sources too, far too many to be in any one book!

This was my first soapmaking book, and remains one of my favorite. The recipes are simple but elegant and I have found the best gift soaps come from here. Batches are manageable in size and the content offers enough variety to sample a number of fragrances and soap styles. I am not as fond of the rebatched recipes as those using the cold process method, and have been happiest when making the later. I can recommend this book wholeheartedly.

I am a very novice soap maker and while the recipes in the book are great when they work, there is very little explanation for when they don't. My husband and I have made the basic soap 1 & 2 and have milled a number of batches. We haven't been able to make our soap mill the way it says it will in the instructions and it's frustrating. Does it take 15 minutes or 3 hours to mill? Little details like that would really help.

Defintely some very nice pictures that would lure you into buying this book. I have the following comments: (1) The information given about soapmaking in this book is very superficial. Even worse, there is definitely some wrong info! For example, the book said that pure castile soap (olive-oil based) will have brown-orange spots on them as they cure. In my experience this only happens when one doesn't mix the lye/oil solution enough, or when the oil calculation is wrong and the orange spots indicite areas of rancid oil. (2) All the recipes in this book is lye-heavy! And worse yet, they don't tell you in the book how to check whether a recipe is lye-heavy (unsafe). (3) The recipes in this book also call for some outrageous amounts of essential oil. Essential oils have their beneficial properties. Remember these are really small molecular substances and can be easily absorbed into the body, and in excess can act just like drugs being overdosed! If you check any other reference books on essential oils, you will find that the quantity of the essnetial oils used in these recipes is over and above the limit. Dangerous! (4) There is also a lack of information as to how to design your own recipe and how to trouble-shoot if you have a problem. The same can be said about information on the different properties of oils--not enough info! So basically, you can only follow their dangerous recipes if you buy this book, but can't creat your own or even check if they are right.

If you only care for nice pictures, and nothing else, this book is for you. But if you really want to make soap, I'd recommend "Essnetially Soap" by Robert McDaniel (or Dr. Bob).

This is the book that taught me to make cold process soap. It contains enough information to be instructional without being intimidating. The text is well-written and the pictures are lovely, and there are brief instructions for melt & pour soaps and some other toiletries as well. I have made several batches of cold process soap using the recipes from this book, and all have turned out wonderfully. This book should be in every soapmaker's library.

I was quite nervous about my first experience with lye after hearing how dangerous it was. Other books I've looked at have said to be cautios, but didn't really tell me how to go about it. This book put all my fears aside, and also listed the exact equipment. After researching through tons of soap books, I have found this book to be the most helpful, and the best book for beginning soapmakers; however, it is also good for advanced soapmakers, as it offers a wide variety of recipes and techniques