Art of Soap Making (Harrowsmith Contemporary Primer) [Paperback]

Merilyn Mohr (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1989 | Series: Harrowsmith Contemporary Primer

Merilyn Mohr has created a complete introduction to the art of home soapmaking - a craft that appeals both to our sense of economy and to our sense of simple esthetics.

Editorial Reviews

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Foreword

I always feel a kind of alchemy at work when a batch of homemade soap is being made, a process that is at once deeply primitive and highly elegant. Unlike commercial soaps of today, a bar of handcrafted soap seems to have a character and richness of its own, and from the strange and streaked concoction my first landlady grated into her washtub to the herbal bar I washed with this morning, handmade soap has never failed to excite me.

Soapmaking cannot help but appeal to one's sense of frugality -- one can make a year's supply of fine quality bars for pennies each -- but beyond the economics, this is a folk art that makes ecological sense. Handmade soap contains nothing you do not add yourself, and the multiple additives that now find their way into both bathing and laundry soaps can happily be avoided.

My own interest in pure homemade soaps eventually led to the formation of a small country soap-making business, which in turn led me deeper into the history and lore of soap and which, finally, helped spawn this book ...

It is my hope that this book will move others to take up the art that has been largely lost, and in the process discover the unique pleasures of handmade soap.

Merilyn Mohr

Product Details

• Paperback: 126 pages
• Publisher: Firefly Books (August 1, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 092065603X
• ISBN-13: 978-0920656037
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #345,425 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good usable book for the novice and experienced soapmaker., August 4, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Art of Soap Making (Harrowsmith Contemporary Primer) (Paperback)

Upon arrival I immediately read the book cover to cover and thoroughly enjoyed myself. This was the third soapmaking book I had purchased and found, that as with the others, the author had her own way of soapmaking. By taking information from all the books I had purchased along with borrowed books from my public library, I was finally able to make soap. I have found in my experiences that no one book is complete in itself, however this book is filled with valuable information and is a must for your soapmaking library.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I found this book to be very good for the begining soaper, August 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Art of Soap Making (Harrowsmith Contemporary Primer) (Paperback)

This book gives all of the basic information and includes lots of recipies. For a little book, it packs in a ton of information from the history of soap to your basic soap recipie to exotic soap recipies.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars yeech, September 22, 2006

By 

Sangreal - See all my reviews

This review is from: Art of Soap Making (Harrowsmith Contemporary Primer) (Paperback)

This is the thing..the book does have some good recipes,however, it is incredibly boring, and i really do not like the way this lady jumps from one subject to another. Case and point: I want to learn about rendering beef tallow, ok? She is doing o.k explaining this and then suddenly, she jumps to lard, then how storing your already rendered tallow near onions will make it smelly, how unclean tallow will make your soap smelly, cooking potatoes in your smelly tallow to make it smell better...oh, what were we talking about? Oh yes, the process of rendering... More like the inner ramblings of a seasoned soaper pretending to have her own talk show while she makes soap.