Natural Soapmaking

Making your own fragrant, softly tinted soaps--as well as bath salts, massage oils, and facial scrubs--is not only much less costly than buying them ready-made, it's also remarkably easy with the recipes in this book. The secret behind these simple but satisfying hand-milled soaps is to begin with purchased bars of plain white soap, rather than cooking up your own soap base from scratch. (This is not cheating, the author points out, but more like how you can consider soup homemade even if you didn't make the stock yourself.) The basic process is extremely straightforward; adding various oils, fragrances, colorants, and botanicals yields dozens of interesting variations. Also appealing are the extensive ideas for labeling and packaging your products and combining them in themed gift presentations. But you may have a hard time giving some of these away, since you'll be tempted to draw a relaxing bath and enjoy them yourself. --Amy Handy