Reviews

DIY Artisanal Soaps: Make Your Own Custom, Handcrafted Soaps! by Alicia Grosso

lsparrow's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.0

a great reference for soap making - additives, fragrances, colors, molds, and different strategies.

sandi67's review against another edition

Go to review page

5.0

Lots of good background info!

ichigoluvah's review against another edition

Go to review page

4.0

This really is an "Everything" soap book! It goes through techniques for every type of soapmaking. This book is a wealth of information that would be great to have on hand to reference individual sections. A great buy for both beginning and intermediate soap makers alike!

I think it's important to note this is not really a recipe book. I would call it a Technique and Reference book. This book provides basic base recipes for all the different soaping methods to try out techniques, but doesn't focus on providing a ton of recipe ideas like some books do. This is truly a book about learning how to make soap in it's different forms and different techniques and additives within the soap.

The recipes: The majority of the base recipes are vegetable based (no lard or tallow) and/or palm free. The author mainly uses micas for coloring and fragrance oils for scent. There is a great section on essential oils near the end of the book. The section on natural colorants is very limited. I'd recommend a more specialized book (or internet research) if you're interested in exploring natural colorants.


A good book for the beginner who wants to have all the techniques in one place, easy to reference. Just know there are essentially no pictures, just pure information.
More...