Artisan soap-makers Dr. Robert McDaniel and Katherine McDaniel provide instruction for anyone with an interest in this timeless craft, from amateurs to professionals. Thirty recipes for creating all kinds of handmade soaps, including liquid, cold- and hot-process, melt-and-pour and re-batched soaps--all using natural ingredients, sustainable methods and tools found in almost any kitchen. The authors also demonstrate how to add fragrances, skin treatments and colors and how to shape solid soaps. The benefits of aromatherapy associated with many essential oils and African Black Soap (renowned for its healing properties for extreme dryness, blemishes, wrinkles, stretch marks and scars) are also explored. A 30-minute tutorial DVD is also included.
Dr. Bob McDaniel has a BS in Chemistry from the University of Notre Dame and a PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of Missouri at Rolla (now Missouri University of Science and Technology.) After a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Chicago, he started an industrial career and worked in the soap and detergent industry for some fifteen years. During his industrial career he earned 14 US Patents and their foreign equivalents all relating to surfactants. His work led to construction of multimillion dollar a year plants in the US and Europe.
At this time Dr.Bob teaches Chemistry and AP Chemistry at an independent high school in Southern California. He has his wife, in addition to writing books, also produce bison tallow soap for bison ranchers Ken and Kathy Lindner. He also writes a column for The Saponifier, an e-magazine for soap makers.
Bob and Katie McDaniel have a wide range of interests. They rode horses in Chicago, played a great deal of golf in Decatur, engaged in fine American crafts in suburban Philadelphia, and engage in target shooting in Southern California. At this point in their lives they successfully, by diet and exercise, regained their weight and conditioning and have matched the weight and BMI last seen as they entered college. If you ask what is next for them, the answer is anything: perhaps even a book on fitness.
