Soap making books: How to make your own soap by Joy James.

Want to learn how to make soap? Looking for soap making books? Look no further - Joy's book takes you step-by-step, with full instructions, through the process of making soap. She demonstrates three gorgeous recipes for homemade 'cold-process' soap. Contains over 30 full colour photographs of every single stage of the soap making process. Learn how to make soap in the comfort of your own home.

ISBN No. 9780955024177
Paperback, 170 x 160mm, 48 pages
31 full colour photos

One of the few soap making books that gives you complete step-by-step instructions on the art of making homemade soap. An exceptionally easy-to-follow book, showing the basic steps to making soap using the ‘cold process’ method. And there'll be a soap recipe to suit you - the book includes three gorgeous recipes: white lavender soap, honey and wheatgerm soap and palm-free rose soap. Each recipe gets a little harder, but all are well within the scope of a beginner soap maker.

From time to time, Joy will be adding new soap making recipes, free to download. The first is a Beer Shaving Soap recipe. And the second is a Gardener's Soap recipe. And a Kitchen Soap recipe with a secret ingredient for getting rid of the smell of garlic and onions from your hands.

As is the case with all of our craft books, the soaps in this book can easily be made in your own kitchen, using utensils that you've most likely got already, or are easy to obtain. Each step of the soap making process is not only explained fully, but there are also step-by-step photographs of every stage. There are also photos and descriptions of all the ingredients and utensils you'll need, including 8 base oils (palm oil, cocoa butter, castor oil, shea butter, rice bran oil and wheatgerm oil), 5 additives (lavender buds, honey, oatmeal, wheatgerm Flakes and rosehips), 2 essential oils (lavender and geranium) and a fragrance oil (rose). It then goes on to describe how to make soap in full detail. And hopefully you won't need it, but no book on soap making is complete without a comprehensive troubleshooting section. Joy also lists a number of very useful soap making forums online, where you can discuss all things soap with other soap makers. The book ends with a comprehensive list of suppliers for the UK, EU, USA, Canada and Australia.

For those of you who are concerned about the use of palm oil, which has become very controversial due to rainforests being cut down to make way for palm plantations, Joy shows you where you can get organic palm oil from sustainable plantations, and also includes a palm-oil-free soap recipe for anyone who'd rather not use it at all.

To see a preview of the Joy James' soap making book, click on the bottom right-hand corner of the cover image above.