The author does a brilliant job of combining the must-have step-by-step detailed instructions on soapmaking basics for beginners, with the best list and descriptions of all soapmaking ingredients!

Beginners and experts alike will enjoy the many tried and true recipes, even specialty soaps! It also covers the "Chemistry of soapmaking", including tables for making your own recipes! She even has a section on starting up your own business to sell your handmade soap creations! And it is all put together in an easy to understand and follow format, for us beginners, or "dummys" in soapmaking!

The only reason that I rated this book at "4 stars", instead of "5 stars" is because it does not include any pictures (and I LOVE pictures!)- only the hand-drawn illustrations in green ink, as is the print, featured throughout the book. She does use alot of fragrances & different oils in her soap recipes, but includes a list of buying resources in the back.

This, along with my other favorite book on soapmaking, "The Complete Soapmaker", by Norma Coney, (full of beautiful pictures!)which features mostly "hand-milled" or rebatched soaps, are the ones I find myself going to time and time again for reference and inspiration!


Great for Beginners   May 4, 2001
 48 out of 52 found this review helpful

This is a great book for beginners, with a lot of neat tips and tricks and some fabulous recipes.

The lack of photos are a definite drawback, but the book does have illustrations, for what it's worth. The author also has some definite bias against certain methods (she doesn't like rebatching, and she doesn't encourage readers to use a freezer to unmold soaps), and it's good to keep an open mind when you read this. But then, Ms. (Mrs.?) Cavitch herself would probably encourage you to try things for yourself rather than just taking her word for it; you get that sense of personality from her writing.

I have found that the batches in this book are VERY big, and I have cut them down myself and found them to take a LOOOOONG time to trace (upwards to an hour or more). I'm not sure if this is just my lack of experience or her recipes; since I use an electric mixer it's not that much of a problem to me, but it would be to someone mixing their soap by hand.

This is an excellent book for beginners who want to learn how to make vegetable-based soaps. I will say, however, that you should be mindful that her recipes are probably more expensive than other books prescribe; after buying the specialized oils (coconut, palm, olive) and essential oils, plus the electric mixer, you will definitely have spent a lot of money. But if making non-animal-fat based soaps is worth it to you, by all means -- buy this book.


Undoubtedly the best book for beginners -- bar none.   March 18, 2001
 40 out of 40 found this review helpful

If you are a beginning soapmaker, there is no other book you should buy. Other books have helpful information; this book, however, compiles all the information you need into one helpful guide. It has frequently asked questions, lists properties of oils, discusses colorants and scents, and explains the chemical process that occurs. If you have never made soap before, it is an incredibly useful guide.

I have read some of the criticisms in the other reviews, and I must disagree with some of them. I did not find most of her recipes to be unduly expensive to make; those that are can easily be avoided by the soapmaker on a budget. Furthermore, I rarely use the recipe section of the book; I use her formulas and the other information she provides to construct my own recipes instead. Also, I disagree that a 10% fat discount (which she typically recommends) is way too much. Some people choose to use a lesser fat discount, and that is fine; for the beginning soapmaker, I think it might be better to provide more of a margin of safety. Once you are more experienced, you can experiment with lowering the fat discount if that's what you prefer.

Really, a beginning soapmaker cannot do better than this book. It compiles all the information you need. Once you are more experienced, you will do well to explore other sources of information (there are some good resources on the Internet, and some other decent soapmaking books as well), but if you are a beginner, Cavitch is definitely the place to start.


For serious soapmakers.   August 30, 1999
 27 out of 28 found this review helpful

An excellent reference manual that's good for years of use. It's the only consumer-level soapmaking book I've seen that was written with the assistance of a professional chemist. None of the usual folk wisdom and clumsy techniques. Cavitch discusses the physical reasons for batch failures and provides solutions using personally tested formulas. Information on balancing saturated and non-saturated vegetable fats is especially good. Basic information for starting a small business is also included. However, the 40-bar recipes are way too large for average home users and measurements are based on the metric system. Reducing high yields to reasonable levels and converting measurements to the U.S. system will cause the failures you're trying to avoid. Also, many of the raw materials suppliers listed are industrial wholesalers who don't sell to consumers. Given the amount of use this book will receive, it should have been published in a hardcover edition, on much better paper and loaded with color photographs. Well worth the additional cost.