The Complete Guide to Natural Soap Making: Create 65 All-Natural Cold-Process, Hot-Process, Liquid, Melt-and-Pour, and Hand-Milled Soaps Paperback – March 26, 2019

If you're thinking of making your own soap. This book is great for beginners and experienced soap maker, and has really good recipes to get you started.

I wish this book had more pictures or a wider variety of cold process soap recipes but it really is a good book because it teaches the basics of soap making and goes into explaining how natural soap making occurs and the benefits of using different oils. The recipes in this book, although very simple, are created with a combination of ingredients that are least likely to fail which is what I was looking for after thinking that I was some soap artist and was continuously disappointed by buying expensive plant oils and butters and then having batch after batch fail. Using the recipes in this book are slowly getting my confidence back. One gripe is that the ingredient measurements are in grams so you will have to convert to ounces etc.

Lots of information very good great recipes

Let me begin by saying I do like the layout of each page in that they are consistent down the line in giving ingredient information and giving attention to cautions such as wearing goggles, wearing gloves and being in well-ventilated room while making soaps. Author is careful to point out this is not a hobby for those with nearby children and pets underfoot. I feel though that I was misled into thinking these recipes are natural therefore safe and not tedious. I looked up "lye" and found that it is sodium hydroxide, made from table salt. Still, be careful as we know that lye is caustic and will burn the skin if contact is made. I understand all soap is made with lye through the ages. Most recipes are intricate and are from scratch. A good deal of effort on the author's part to give authentic recipes, and I appreciate that a lot. However, for me, I'd never want to mess around with lye and have to worry about my eyes, nose, breathing, as it is too much to think about for a hobby. When I read, "65 all natural, cold process, hot process," I wrongly assumed that there was such a thing as literally "cold" process. No. There is no explanation as what "cold process" means. And it is every bit of hot as with melting your ingredients for other methods. So I misunderstood the term "cold." My immediate disappointments were not seeing measurements in the metric system. Author uses grams which do not translate to even numbers of ounces. As I translated a few, there will be an unusual leftover amount such as 450 grams equals 15.87 ounces, for one example. So you'll be doing a lot of estimating with measurements. My next disappointment is that the text is somewhat small and light gray ink. Some pages are smaller and lighter text than others (eg. pgs 222 and 223). Different fonts used on the 2 pages, too, and throughout. No biggie about the font type, but all text should be readable and ink should be sufficiently dark. Colored text that is pale is especially not easy to read. There are very few pictures, and this is very disappointing. It's like buying a cookbook that has 300 pages and only 12 pictures. I'd like it better if there was step by step pictures and not mostly text. To give credit where it's due, it is a beautiful book, the cover is a very nice texture and sturdy for a paperback. There are suggestions for where to buy ingredients and a bit of advice for those endeavoring to go into business, which is very thoughtful. The book is packed with info, and if you aren't afraid to handle lye in your soap-making, you certainly can benefit from the info here. Good news is that you can buy many choices of already made solid soap bases such as glycerin, shea butter and many more, which makes the process easier by far. All you do is melt and pour. This is in the book as well as liquid soap making, which requires a lye solution. I gave 4 well-deserved stars for overall excellence.

I totally love this book. I’m so happy with it I don’t know that I don’t need any other soap books from anyone else. This was my first and I’m extremely happy with it. I recommend it and I will use all the information provided since it’s so informative and at a great price.

Due to an unfortunately timed arm injury, I cannot soap at this time, so I’ve been soaping vicariously by slowly savoring this book. The recipes sound delicious and Amanda gives great tips in addition to providing safety information, recipes, resources and sharing her wealth of knowledge. My only disappointment in this book comes from the lack of photos. The ones provided are beautiful and inspiring so I’m left craving more of them. I can’t wait till my elbow is functioning properly again so I can give these a try!

Im a complete novice to the world of soap making. This is one of 3 books that I bought because I couldn’t decide. Great and easy read and background, loved all the pictures and recipes. Although I used the recipe in a different book, I’ve bookmarked several of my favorites on this book and are on my to-do list, just waiting for the specific products to arrive....can’t wait !

I absolutely love this book!. I've been making all natural soap for over a year and have bought many soap books and I absolutely love it. She gives all the knowledge, tips, techniques, and recipes needed for a beginner to novice soaper. All the pictures are so colorful, I just wish there would be a picture for each soap recipe on its recipe page. I can't wait to begin trying the soap recipes and new techniques.