where to find...

[mychicknpi]

Hi!
I would like to find some books that would be good on hand info for soapmaking. I have a couple of oldies, not so sure if they are goodies, since they are a bit vague....a friend has made some batches out of them and was pleases, but she is not as picky about things as I am (no worries, she would say the same thing, if it lathers and cleans it's fine, smell and color are bonuses), and I want to have smelly, pretty soaps...if I can.

I also would like some detailed info on how to use the soapcalc...that thing scares the gee willickers out of me.

I know my list is long, but I want to use the milk from my goats (2 Alpines and 2 Nubians) and my Jerseys for my milk and lard from our pigs and honey from our bees. And could one use rendered chicken or duck fat? Does that seem totally bizarre? Any admonishments againest anything I mentioned? And if one uses skim milk is it still a fat or can you treat it as water? Sorry, I am such newbie!

Thanks so much,
Anna

 

[IanT]

lol you could use any fat or oil to make soap as long as you can find a SAP value for it... or calculate the SAP yourself (which takes a lot more work and chemistry knowledge/ability to do test runs without minding having to possibly trash some of the trials)...

I love the idea of using stuff that is available to you, especially if its free!!

I couldnt reccommend any books, I mostly worked off of google. I hear good things about katherine Falor's (sp?) books... Pretty much what I did when I started was went to my local library and took out every book they had on soap ....

hope that helps Im sure others will chime in with their book reccommendations

 

[madartist]

Well, the SOAPMAKERS COMPANION by Susan Miller Cavitch, is one of my main reference books. Written in 1959, it's probably one of the best overall reference book. One thing I don't care for in this book is her recipes. She's REALLY into superfatting and I found that my bars were REALLY soft and kinda greasy. But the rest of the info I have found rather valuable.

THE EVERYTHING SOAPMAKING BOOK by Alicia Grosso is my other top fav. Her recipes pass the soapcalc test and are broken down into 1, 2, 4, & 8 lb batches so for beginers, there is no need to size their recipes themselves.

SOAPMAKING FOR FUN AND PROFIT by Maria Given Nerius is not a very good book for recipes as most of the recipes are for store purchased rebatched soap. It DOES however have a lot of info about starting and running a soap business. So if you are thinking of selling soap, this would be a good choice.

SOAP MAKING SELF-SUFFICIENCY by Sarah Ade has a great section defining soap ingredients (oils, butters, essential oils, absolutes, infusions and miscellaneous ingredients like waxes, milks and common natural exfoliants).

And though it's about MP and not CP, Marie Browning's 300 HANDCRAFTED SOAPS is just a plain beautiful book to go through. It's entirely melt & pour, but this woman is SO CREATIVE. Her soaps are beautiful and inspiring.

 

[smittenheart]

I ditto those that madartist suggested but will also add

Smart Soapmaking by Anne Watson

 

[donniej]

If you can't find the sap value for the duck or chicken fat you can figure it out yourself. Let me know if you end up doing this and I'll explain how.