Soap Making

a book by melinda coss, you will find it on amazon. Beware, HM soap lasts ages! which I know is economical but i like to have different types regularly, and the HM ones I made last longer than any i have ever encountered.

If you get good at it you could also sell them on ebay.

Oh by the way, saw you planning on doing it with kids- I would suggest its only suitable for making with older children as lye burns are very very nasty indeed, and even the fumes are not good round kids. You could however make the soap yourself as a plain batch, then get them to help you rebatch it into laundry soap and washballs with interesting additives like oatmeal or herbs, that is perfectly safe. I personally wouldnt let children handle caustic soda until well into their teens.

Alison_B wrote:

Don't you need to comply with certain regulations to sell it though? Could be an idea in the making, thanks black-saturn.

Absolutely. I sell mine, and the regulations are extremely strict indeed. Basically, you need to have each recipe certified as safe by a cometic chemist, then use stamped for trade scales, inform the DTI and a few other regulations, plus comply with all the weights, measures and labelling regulations. Its not a particularly cheap process to get certified but thats the law! I can recommend a very good ebook overview of teh process if anyone feels they want to explore soapmaking as a business. I've been selling soap for a couple of years now and have yet to make a real profit though.

Basically- don't panic. Soapmaking at home is a lot of fun, but you do need to go slowly, measure very carefully, and be certain you have time to concentrate completely. The results are definately worth it, and you will find soap you make yourself is a zillion times better than anything money can buy. Its also much cheaper for home use- its the legalities that make selling soap so expensive.