Rating: 
Summary: Pretty good
Review: First, I want to mention that in my edition, she has corrected the instructions regarding adding lye to water. Mine clearly states to add the lye to the water, which is the correct (safe) way.After running her recipes through an online calculator, I agree that they're a bit heavy on the lye. She has zero superfatting, which for a beginner seems a little risky - if you short your oils at all your soap might turn out too caustic. I also reduce the water in her recipes by about 20% unless I'm using a fragrance oil prone to siezing. So I recommend taking her recipes and running them through a good online lye calculator and deciding for yourself if you want to reduce these - I generally use a 5% lye discount and have had great results. This book focuses rather heavily on rebatching. Personally I enjoy rebatching but many soapers consider it a nightmare and reserve it only for failed batches. So just be aware that this book is a little shy on base soap recipes, but great if you're looking for rebatching recipes. I also have an aversion to using tallow or other animal products, and there are only 2 base soaps that are all veggie. I would have liked to see more all-veggie recipes. Overall I think it's a pretty good book, and I'll be keeping my copy. I just write in my own water and lye amounts. :)
Rating: 
Summary: Too intimidating for the the soap newbie
Review: I found this book very intimidating, it was the first info I had bought and read about soap making,and the whole way it is written seemed to make soap making a scary prospect especially if you are afraid of lye, then add on top of that the rendering your own fat section! Ahhhhhhh------------! I bought it a year ago, read it put it on the shelf and said " I guess soap making is too hard, it's not for me! Now that I have access to the internet I have found other info about soapmaking and am finally ready to try it! Whew! It now doesn't seem so scary when I read other's directions and techniqes!I don't feel this is a good book for the soapmaking illiterate! Not for beginners!
Rating: 
Summary: Great book! Easy to Use!
Review: I have borrowed this book from my library so many times, I decided I really need my own copy. The great pictures, easy to follow instructions, simple recipes will make any crafty person want to start making soap.
Rating:
Summary: A great guide to making hand-milled soaps
Review: I learned how to make soap using this book and found it addressed safety issues in detail. In fact, Cooney EMPHASIZES the safety factor. Obviously, the step about adding water to lye (dangerous splash factor) was a mistake and it's been corrected. I especially liked the recipes, which call for ingredients that are easy to obtain at your local grocer, drug store or herbologist. Barring that, every ingredient can be obtained through online resources. Cooney's recipes for hand-milled soaps, a process too many recent soapmaking books are eliminating altogether, are the best I've found. Hand-milled soaps produce better lather, are gentler to the skin, and retain their fragance much longer. Try Cooney's recipes. You'll love them!
Rating:
Summary: I love this book Its my bible for soapmaking
Review: Ive made several batches of "basic soap" and what a BIG help this book has been. I have read the other "BAD" reviews on this book, an I think they were looking for melt and poor soaps. This book is for the REAL thing. LYE SOAP and lot of great hand milling recipes.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good
Review: One of many soapmaking books I purchased when beginning soapmaking. Thankfully, it isn't the first one I actually used. She warns on page 34-- "don't make the mistake of adding the lye to the water" when the correct method is EXACTLY the opposite --or a SERIOUS explosion/reaction can happen. The recipes are also very "lye heavy" and she confuses "handmilling" with what soapmakers term "rebatching". I'm very concerned that this book comes highly recommended on many web sites for beginners to soapmaking. There are many better books out there that are much more informative AND accurate!! Hot and cold process soapmaking isn't teribly difficult and very rewarding, but when working with caustic chemicals, one should be well-informed. This book could seriously mislead someone.
Rating:
Summary: Misleading and poor value
Review: Superficially this looks like a good book, however the appearance is misleading. The recipes do not produce good soap and the instructions for re-batching produce rather unpleasant-textured soap that takes months to harden up and become useable. The author recommends the use of fabric dyes, many of which are highly toxic and should never be applied to the skin. Slightly less serious, she recommends using pot-pourri fragrance oils which are not approved for cosmetic use and can cause major problems in the soap manufacture. There are far better books on soapmaking around, don't waste your time and money on this one.
Rating:
Summary: Great way to learn the basics
Review: This is a good book to learn the basics of making lye soap. After reading this you will know if this is the way you want to make soap. Many special ingredients cannot be gotten at the grocery store but are wonderful additions if you can find them. I had no problems getting beautiful bars of soap from this book. My rebatched bars were beautiful and hard in a short time. I did not do things exactly like the book since I used the microwave for rebatching. Use your gut and play with your soap it makes you feel good. Straight forward about potential hazards. Essential oils are best for skin, potpourri oils for sachets. Any dye I think is bad go natural that is why you make your own soap
Rating:
Summary: Better than many others that I have read
Review: This is one of the better books that I have read on soapmaking. Other authors (that I will not name) talk at length about the history of soap and their own companies whereas this book actually focuses on the info you need---how to make soap. It has about 6 recipes for making cold process soap (lye and fats/oils) and then about 20 recipes for hand milled soaps (where you use the cold process soap that has already been made and melt it down then add herbal ingrediants or whatever you want to add) It also has more information regarding good molds to use than all the other books that I have read. There is a list of sopamaking terms that are helpful. Pictures are nice and I think would be helpful for the first time soap maker. I wish this was the book that I read while I was just beginning.
Rating:
Summary: simple and creative
Review: When I first started to search for soap making books, there were just too many. After ordering a few of them, I decided that this one was THE ONE. Simple recipes that focuse on hand milling soap making, not forgetting the basic recipes that we can use to create our own soaps. The most appealing was that the ingredients are simple, and there are a lot of soap recipes that don't include hard to get oils, such as palm or coconut oils. In Portugal it's almost impossible to get them. The explanation is simple and the pictures are beautiful. I recommend this book for beginners, although anyone can enjoy the adventure of starting from a basic soap and creating their own special hand milling recipes.
| 
