Storey Publishing Making Transparent Soap

As a book Very informative and organized. Delivered on time

The book is amazing and I got it in super short time ❤ I love you Amazon

OK, I am almost a complete noob at soap making, around 10 small batches total of different types. I’ve also taken a couple of classes. This book, for me anyway, fills in an awful lot of the blanks. I bought it for the recipes and wound up reading it straight through.A couple of readers mentioned the large batch sizes and some confusion as to the math etc and I can definitely understand why, especially if you’re more of a cook than a baker. Baking requires that proportions stay the same (mostly) in a recipe, but if you do the math to maintain the proportions, many recipes can be reduced or expanded to suit your needs. I have noticed that in soap as well. So...grab your favorite beverage, a calculator, a notebook and start scratching away! Working in columns helps me keep things straight and I can go back and double check my math before I commit to the making.I ran a couple of these recipes/methods past one of my instructors and she said there didn’t seem to be any reason why they would NOT work. She also reminded me that context plays a big role in success when crafting soap, candles or other items. I live in a humid, warm climate, at an altitude where I just have to think about it when baking..so things evaporate more slowly, puff up a little more quickly and curing time is different than it would be in another climate.Craft supplies here are often considered luxury items and pay high taxes so finding a way to start from scratch is wonderful. A scant kilo of very basic melt and pour soap here is over $12 (and not the organic or yummy kinds with milk or luxury oils) and it comes from China, so often there simply isn’t any available at any price.So this book explains some of the chemistry, has some recipes that, once adjusted for a non-commercial (sales) application will be great, and takes the time to fill in some blanks that have been glossed over in other materials.

I bought this book several years ago and it is the best soap-making book I've found. The instructions are simple and easy to follow and the different ingredients used are explained perfectly. I had made soap many times before I bought this book and I used to use the cold-process method. My soap was good, but it takes several weeks for cold-process soap to complete it's chemical reaction. After it's cured, if it is stored for any length of time it shrinks and so it doesn't look as good then. Also, the cold-process soaps I made tended to be somewhat soft and would be used up rather quickly. All of those problems disappeared with the soaps made from this book's recipes. The recipes call for alcohol. After experimenting with several kinds of alcohol, I settled on using EverClear. It smells good in the soap, and doesn't dry the skin, contrary to what one might think. The EverClear costs more than the cheapest vodka, but the results are dramatically better. When I went to the Chemical store (it's in the city where I live) to buy the scents and bulk supplies, the chemist said that clear soap can't be made at home because it had to cooked under pressure and that it would take a genius to figure out how to do it. He wanted to sell me the melt-and-pour soap base, and I felt like he'd challenged me, so I went home and made transparent soap with this book and it turned out great. Yes, the soap is cooked under pressure, but all it takes is following the instructions in the book where a sheet of plastic is bungeed over the soap-making pot and that pot is placed inside a bigger pot of boiling water. After cooking for a time, the soap is poured into molds and is ready to use as soon as it cools and hardens. This is the hot-process and the soap is very thin when it is ready to be poured into the molds. This makes it very easy to mold well (no tapping out air pockets) but your molds must be water-tight. Regular soap molds work well, but home-made loaf-type molds need to be lined so they don't leak. My sister has the first book I bought and won't give it back, so I am buying another one.

I think this book won't help too many beginning/novice soap makers. The process is only slightly more complicated than cold process soap making, and the way it's explained, it's not very intimidating. Just more steps, and more ingredients.However, my main complaint (and why it isn't the best for beginners) is that all of the recipes make commercial-size batches of soap (author mentions that recipes make 50-60 "average sized" bars of soap). This is great when you're making soap to sell or want to do a lot for holiday gifts, but for your first time making transparent soap it could lead to a LOT of wasted ingredients (if you miss or mess up a step).For future editions, I'd like to see at least one beginner recipe that makes just 1-2 pounds of soap with this process, to familiarize readers with it on a smaller scale with less risk. Otherwise I think the book is easy to read and the directions seem easy to follow. The author also gives good advice on buying your ingredients to avoid spending more money than necessary, particularly for the alcohol needed as a solvent in the later steps (hint: if you buy it from the liquor store, you'll likely overpay).

Loved that it takes the reader through most of what soap makers need to know before diving in. Even provides plans for making a soap cutter and wooden soap molds. I would have liked the information ordered differently but it is fairly complete and almost entirely accurate.

I found this book to be informative and useful for general information and recipe ideas. If you just want a cook book to follow, it probably is not the best book for you. This book actually goes through the differences between cold process soap making and hot process. It does have the recipes in it, but the method is more intense than cold-process. If you are expecting an easy method, probably keep looking. If you are interested in the science behind soap and doing more with soap, this is a great book.