A Selection of the Best Soapmaking Books Available

Natural Soapmaking

Contains 20 recipes for making your own soaps using essential oils, herbs and flowers. Start with a basic bar of white soap, or learn how to make a bar from scratch. The book also offers ideas for bath salts, bath oils, bubble baths, massage oils, facial scrubs and bath tea bags.

“Soap is…one of the better crafts to consider as gifts…supplies directions for more than 20 different kinds of hand-milled soap, an easier process than starting from lye…instructions extend to bath oils and salts and to packaging, labeling, and creating a munificence of fragrance. Step-by-step descriptions are boldly illustrated with color photographs. Who could resist all-natural camomile oatmeal soap or effervescent all-natural champagne bubble bath?”–“Booklist.

Soapmaking the Natural Way:

45 Melt-and-pour Recipes Using Herbs, Flowers + Essential Oils

Presents the melt-and-pour method that offers readers a safe way to make soaps at home without investing in elaborate tools or supplies. This title features the eco-friendly, animal-free ingredients that span a delicious range from oatmeal, lavender, sweet almond butter and coconut milk to honeysuckle, orange cream, clay and fresh mint.

This book offers simple techniques and sophisticated, 100 per cent natural soaps that please the eye and the environment. The melt-and-pour method offers readers a safe and accessible way to make soaps at home without investing in elaborate tools or supplies and author Rebecca Ittner’s friendly, you-can-too writing style invites both the novice and the aficionado to delve into the world of soapmaking. The eco-friendly, animal-free ingredients featured in each project span a delicious range from oatmeal, lavender, sweet almond butter and coconut milk to honeysuckle, orange cream, clay and fresh mint. Not only are the ingredients used luscious, they (and the basic soapmaking tools and supplies) are all readily available at standard craft supply shops. The reader will find this book to be an affordable, inviting and informative resource as well as an inspiring collection of projects.

Soapmaking 101:

Natural Recipes and Beautiful Glycerine Bars

Did you ever want to make soap but thought that it was too difficult? Now you can indulge yourself with homemade soap that is quick and easy. Soapmaking 101 gives you dozens of ideas for making soap for every skin type, and you can add fragrances to match any personality or taste. There are also recipes for bath oils and bath salts. Make and enjoy them all!

Smart Soapmaking:

The Simple Guide to Making Traditional Handmade Soap Quickly, Safely, and Reliably, or How to Make Luxurious Handcrafted Soaps for Family, Friends, and Yourself

Maybe you’ve made melt-and-pour soap and want to move on to something more challenging and rewarding. Maybe traditional soapmaking appeals to you, but you figure that working with lye is too difficult or dangerous.

Or maybe you’re already doing it, but outmoded ideas and methods are complicating the process and slowing you down. No matter which of these fits you, you’ll find Smart Soapmaking practical, helpful, and refreshing. Written by a former professional soapmaker, this book explodes the myths about soapmaking and shows you how to make luxurious soap with the least fuss and bother. || With both customary and metric measurements, plus a list of suppliers in five countries, Smart Soapmaking is the first truly international book on the craft!

Anne L. Watson is the author of the wildly popular and widely acclaimed beginners book Smart Soapmaking and its companions, Milk Soapmaking and Smart Lotionmaking. She has made soap professionally under the company name Soap Tree, and before her retirement was a historic preservation architecture consultant. Anne’s other published books include Baking with Cookie Molds and several novels. Anne, her husband, Aaron, and their cat, Skeeter, live in Friday Harbor, Washington.

Should become THE book for soapmaking…It’s about time someone wrote a book like this. Most are idealistic and inaccurate. This book has a wonderful common sense approach that is SO long overdue…I can recommend it with 100% confidence. — Susan Kennedy, Oregon Trail Soaps, Rogue River, Oregon

Smart it is …

A simple, no-nonsense book that cuts through the curmudgery of stifling soap bibles like no other. Shellie Humphries, Harstine Island, Washington

Quick, safe, and reliable…

As fun as it is informative, Smart Soapmaking is a must for anyone who would like to try their hand at this traditional craft. — Library Bookwatch (Midwest Book Review), Jan. 2007 || Way overdue…A gift of common sense caution, proven methods, tried-and-true shortcuts, and some excellent recipes as well, for both the professional/ experienced soapmaker and the eager beginner. — Deb Petersen, Shepherd’s Soap Co., Shelton, Washington || A great book for beginners, with clear and easy instructions. — Anne-Marie Faiola, Bramble Berry Inc., Bellingham, Washington || I learned more from Smart Soapmaking than from any other soaping book, and I have read quite a few…It’s written with the average person in mind, not a chemistry major. Directions are very simple and easy to understand. It really takes the mystery out of making soap. — Jackie Pack, Stuart, Virginia || Written in an easy, casual style that reminded me of an in-person soapmaking class. The information is practical, helpful, and easy to understand. — Barb Miller, Miller’s Homemade Soaps, Westfield, Pennsylvania || Excellent …The simplicity and fear quashing is wonderfully reassuring to the beginning soaper. — Kerry Pearson, Heirloom Body Care, Llandilo, New South Wales || The directions are more practical than in other soapmaking books I’ve read. I was also happy to see how many great sources for materials and information the book provided. The book will save soapmakers a lot of time and effort. — Pamela Paine, Butternut Creek Farm Soaps, Dorset, Ohio || Groundbreaking …Anne L. Watson [is the] universally respected and loved author/crafter/curator of this lost art for thousands of aspiring soapers …Unquestionably the best book with which to begin. To be precise, it’s probably the most accessible, most reader-friendly, and most immediately useful container of information a first-time soapmaker could hope to find. — Wishing Willow (blog)

Soapmaking: A Magickal Guide

Using vegetable oils, herbs, essential oils and common kitchen equipment, Soapmaking will guide you through 25 all-natural recipes for luxurious, gentle, beautiful and magickal soaps, including one for each of the eight Pagan Sabbats, Moon Phases, Handfasting, Quest, Croning and other major life events.

Drawing on her long experience with soap, herbs, oils and earth-based spirituality, Alicia Grosso will also teach you now to infuse your handmade soaps with wishes, prayers, dreams and magick. While focused on the magickal aspects of making soap, non-magickal people will find good, basic instruction for natural small-batch soapmaking, along with herb lore and ways to fill soap with prayers, wishes and reams. Although written for the beginning soapmaker even the most seasoned soaper will find inspiration in the rituals and procedures of making magickal soap.