Soap Recipes - Omnibus Edition

This wonderful little collection of soap recipes was a joint effort of some members of the Naturseifenforum who contributed their favourite recipes and fotos. It was Montylee who organised and edited the book with a loving eye for detail, and who had it printed. When the first book proved a bestseller, she even published a second volume. In the pictures you can see the omnibus edition.

When I don't have the time to make soaps myself, I love to pick up this little book and to be inspired by all those wonderful creations. Just look at the soaps in the picture below (and note the professional design by Montylee)!

My offline soap calculator

When I started making soap, my internet connection was somewhat unstable at times. I was afraid that I might be stranded offline without a soap calculator the next time I planned a new soap. So I made my own offline Excel soap calculator with the saponification values gathered from different free online calculators.

In the picture below you can see how the amount of sodium hydroxide is calculated for a given percentage of superfatting (oh well, I guess it's too small, you'll have to click on the picture to enlarge it).






The offline soap calculator has the added advantage of acting as a file for my recipes:

My block soap mould

I had found an online tutorial on how to build a block soap mould (it's in German, courtesy of a German soapaholic called Hanna), so I emailed it to my father and asked: Can you help me make one of these? He said we coulud build the mould together next Saturday.

However, when I went over to my parents' house on Saturday, there was a finished block mould waiting for me and my father said: "Well, I thought I'd trim the boards so we wouldn't have to do this when you come over. And then I thought I might also drill the holes in. I had already bought the screws and bolts, so I though I might as well assemble the mould...".

Awww, thanks dad! :)

First things first.

A couple of years ago I stumbled upon a wikibook about the venerable art of soap-making and I was instantly fascinated by the idea of making soap from scratch (don't know whether Lush even existed at that point, but Body Shop sure did - for those who can afford it). However, the wikibook was a very sober affair, and all this talk of dangerous chemicals effectively put me off soapmaking for a while. It was only when, coincidentally again, I stumbled upon another website about soapmaking - a website with lots of pictures this time - that I felt brushing up my knowledge of chemistry would be worth the trouble.

So I read a lot, looked at countless pictures to whet my appetite and started looking for a big pot and safety goggles. Took me quite some time to get all the equipment necessary for my first foray into rocket sc..., er, soapmaking. But finally I had everything I needed...