Making Natural Liquid Soaps: Herbal Shower Gels, Conditioning Shampoos, Moisturizing Hand Soaps, Luxurious Bubble Baths, and more

I don't understand the reviews that complain this book does not have step by step instructions. There are 13 clear steps with text and photos covering 18 pages with lots of white space to aid in following the steps. The recipes for different oil combinations are listed separately but each is complete in specifying the number of ounces of oils, lye, and water required.I don't understand the reviews that complain this book requires chemistry to follow the steps. I can't find any chemical formulas in the book but there may be some hidden someplace. The 5 alternate methods re: stirring listed on half of page 25 can be confusing--just cover them up with Post-It notes or highlight the alternatives so you can more easily skip over them.This hot process is more complicated and dangerous than making cold process soap and it takes 4 hours or more and requires frequent attention. (The alcohol process is even more complicated and dangerous but can and should be ignored by all but advanced soapmakers.) You'll probably have to order the Potassium Hydroxide over the Web--it's a lot harder to find locally than Lye-Sodium Hydroxide.I prefer using a crock pot to the double boiler method but the instructional steps, recipes, and temperatures still apply.

A helpful book on making soaps.

This book did inspire me to make homemade liquid soap for the first time ever. For the most part, I found the instructions to be clear and easy to follow, much like a recipe. However, my first batch did not turn out well due to my 10 Quart soap pot was too small and the heat was turned up too high. This caused the mixture to foam up and leak out from underneath the plastic cover and spill out onto the floor. This was very discouraging and a total loss of expensive ingredients. It wasn't very clear to me what size pot to use or how much the recipe would yield (9.5 Quarts). I was attempting to make "Sudsy Fun Shampoo", page 65 using the "Alcohol/Lye Method", p. 33. I would suggest using a much larger pot or cutting the recipe in half when making for the first time and decreasing the heat to the lowest setting as soon as the mixture comes to a boil. Be sure to read the entire book cover to cover or you might miss a a couple of critical points such as making a buffer solution out of Borax, p. 30, and how much Pure Grain Alcohol will be required, p. 61. (20 ounces of PGA is almost an entire fifth!). I also found it confusing about how much water to use when diluting the paste down to the final product. Mine turned out a little too thin using the suggested amount. I also had trouble obtaining some of the ingredients. There is no "Grocery Store" substitute for Potassium Hydroxide. I got mine from Snowdrift Farm soapmaking supplier. I was very pleased with Snowdrift. The 2 pound cannister is enough for 3 batches. Larger amounts require a HAZMAT Shipping Fee. They do not carry Sulfonated Castor Oil and I have been unable to obtain this mysterious ingredient. I was able to find Vegetable Glycerine at the local health foods store. With some hard lessons learned, my second attempt went very well and the final product is wonderfull! It has a pretty amber color and turned out crystal clear, no cloudiness whatsoever. This shampoo is rich and luxurious and has a fresh clean scent like nothing I have ever used before. It gets my hair and scalp squeeky clean and softens my coarse hair. This book is packed with helpfull information and I would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to make liquid soap or shampoo.

This is my book is my second copy had one for a few years and split soap on my main page I use the most so reordered a new. Love this book and will use it for many years for making soap for my family.

We are loving the liquid soaps that I have made. They clean very well and feel great! This book has excellent liquid soap recipes, but make sure you read all the instructions as there is a lot of very important information given. If you have never made soaps before, this is probably not a good place to start as the process is a bit more complex and time consuming. That said, it is not hard and if you can follow instruction anyone can do it!

This book has lots of detailed information, but it relies heavily on Borax for liquid soap making. Now I don't know about you, but the reason I bought this book was to make liquid soap that isn't toxic. The book makes ZERO mention about the toxicity of Borax.According to EWG, "Borax and its relatives can cause irritation to the skin and eyes and disrupt hormones. Intense exposure may harm the male reproductive system... Manufacturers have mostly eliminated borax and its relative sodium borate from personal care products because the chemicals are easily absorbed through skin. The cosmetics industry recommends that no borates be used in products designed for use on damaged skin." And yet, Failor describes Borax as "One of the best all-around additives for liquid soap". Yikes!The only reason this isn't one star is that the book does contain plenty of other useful information that I will use for reference material.

This is soap making at the next level up from bar soap. So hard to get real soap that is economical. Used this book made liquid and bar soaps, and they are all good.

I was pretty disappointed with this purchase after reading so many positive reviews and recommendations. There are many recipes, but they don't provide information about superfatting levels. I found none of the recipes to be helpful since they don't give info on superfat, and I was not able to verify using soapcalc as I always do with any recipe. Most concerning was the section on fragrance and essential oils....many commonly known errors about essential throughout. The book labels many fragrance oils as essential oils that do not exist. this misinformation caused me to question the rest of the book's validity.

I love the materials characteristics and useage charts.

Envío rapidisimo. El libro está en muy buen estado aunque es de segunda mano. Es completisimo, con información muy útil, muchas recetas e indicaciones

A detailed book describing qualities of oils. Could have added the percentage of borax, etc to be used in the recipes and marked it as optional for ease. A good book.

Good recipe but unfortunately the instructions are waffly and in pounds and oz rather than kg and ml. When converting it is unclear as to wether it is fluid oz or solid.

A good book for the beginner; very clear instructions and lots of recipes. I now make liquid soap along with my solid bars, both straightforward and not full of unnecessary 'nasties'.