One of the newest additions to our online Bookstore, Soapmaking the Natural Way by Rebecca Ittner features 45 melt & pour recipes that rely on natural ingredients for color, scent, and character. Ittner does a great job of showcasing how natural additives can be used to enhance glycerin soaps. You’ll find page after page of colorful, unique soap projects with easy to follow instructions. Soapmaking The Natural Way would make a great book for first time soapers, or for melt & pour enthusiasts that haven’t branched out into using natural additives yet. It covers a pretty good range of Essential Oil combinations, natural exfoliants, and ingredients used for color and texture.
I tried out two recipe from the book, Milk & Honey, and Himalayan Magic. Both recipes are from the Exfoliate section of the book, simply because exfoliating soaps are my personal favorite variety of melt & pour.
You can see the Himalayan Magic soaps on the right, and the Milk & Honey soaps on the left. Of the two recipe, Milk & Honey was by far my favorite. It had a nice aroma, even before I added the Vanilla. I cheated a bit for the sake of thrift, and used Vanilla Bean Fragrance Oil in place of Vanilla Essential Oil, but even with that concession the bars smelled very nice. Also, since we don’t carry a Shea Butter Suspension Base, as called for in the book, I used half Shea Butter Melt & Pour Base and half Suspension Melt & Pour Base. I think the color and the texture of the soaps turned out very nicely. They are rich, creamy, and they lather very well. What more could you ask for in a glycerin soap?
As for the Himalayan Magic, I wasn’t as impressed. I had my concerns about the salt and soap mixing when I looked at the recipe, but decided to suspend disbelief for a moment and give it a shot. Mixing the Himalayan Salt into the melted Soap Base went about as well as I expected, which was not very well. The salt clumped and sank, and for the life of me I could not get it to mix, let alone suspend in the soap. If there is a trick to this recipe, Ittner did not include it. On the other hand, the soaps smelled wonderful. The combination of Rose and Geranium was very pleasant, and suited the color of the soap quite well. I should also note that although the salt did not spread out in the soap, it still looks very pretty suspended in chunks through the middle of the bars.
I am looking forward to trying out many more of the recipes in this book. A few that have particularly peaked my interest are: Brown Sugar & Vanilla, Ladies Citrus Shave, Orange Marmalade, and Carved Quartz. Kristi at Fiber Fool made up her own batch of the Ladies Citrus Shave from this book. They are gorgeous, so make sure to stop by her blog and check them out!
Have you read this book? If so, please share your own review in the comments below!
I’ve made the citrus shave soap and blogged about it at http://blog.designedlykristi.com/?p=889
At the same time I also made the coffee soap, but I haven’t put up a blog post about it. But it went well. I may have not ground my coffee quite as fine as should have though. But it does drastically reduce odors from cooking that get left behind on my hands.
Thanks for sharing your project with us. I have been dying to make that soap, and now that I have heard such a glowing review about it I will have to stop stalling and whip some up.
I bought this book right when it came out but haven’t tried the projects yet. I was disappointed that there weren’t any step-by-step photos. I like many of the ideas such as using brown sugar in the soap base, which gives it a really pretty color, but I didn’t find it to be a very creative book. I do appreciate that it’s the only m&p book focusing on using natural colorants and ingredients, though!
Thanks for sharing your review with us! I agree that step by step photos would definitely have helped with some of these recipes. I had particular trouble with my Salt Bars. I have a feeling the Brown Sugar will do better.
Hi, I have purchased this book and am working through the recipes little by little. So far I’ve really gotten into it and am enjoying myself, but I am having a hard time finding a few of the essential oils called for from my normal sources. Pomegranate, melon, and black raspberry being some of them. Did you all use these oils in the recipes, and if so, where did you find them, or do you think maybe they aren’t actual essential oils but carriers or extracts I should be looking for? Any help is much appreciated!
Hi Autumn. Fruit Essential Oils, like melon, pomegranate, and raspberry are often mentioned in books and recipes, but the truth is that there are no true essential oils made from fruits. Citrus oils are distilled from the oil rich rinds of the fruits. Unfortunately, melons, berries, and pomegranates dont yield the same kinds of oils in their peels, so essential oils cant really be made from them. Natural extracts are sometimes made, but they dont often carry strong enough scents for soap making, and more than often they are carried in alcohol, which makes them poor ingredients for soaping. Now and then, you might see fruit essential oils or natural fragrance oils for sale. Usually these terms are being used very loosely. For now, the only source of fruity scents for soap making are from synthetic fragrance oils. The good news is that cosmetic fragrance oils are formulated specifically for this purpose. The bad news is that they cant be considered natural by any stretch of the imagination. If youd like to keep your soaps totally natural, just stick to scenting them with classic essential oils that we know and trust. There are so many available, and they can be blended in countless ways.
Thanks again for your comment, Autumn. I hope this information helps! Its too bad that books and sites promote these kinds of imaginary ingredients. Apart from that issue, I hope that you are enjoying the book!