Teach Soap

Hello .. TY for allowing me to join your forum.I am a total newb to soap making . I am trying to figure out where to start. I want to do as much as i can from scratch .AND keep my ingredients from the good old USA Only.. Any hints or suggestions will be most appreciated . Please if anyone can nudge me in the right direction for ingredients , oils ,etc . Also bottles for softsoaps and shampoos .I would like to find some glass jars if possible. I want to get as high quality as i can afford. And frankly the plastics are starting to scare me a little .
Thank You all for being here and willing to help . Kimmy13

Welcome!
My best suggestion for you is to start reading the forum.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Hi Kimmy!

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

Welcome, Kimmy!

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Linda

I learn so much when I can't leave well enough alone!

Welcome!

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

Welcome Kimmy13!

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Lisa
“What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul” ~ Yiddish proverb

Welcome Kimmy,

I'm new too. What an adventure we've embarked on, eh? I poured my first batch about a week ago. Jump on in and let's learn together.

I can sympathize about wanting to go from "scratch" AMAP. During my research for soap #1, I relied heavily on a webpage that listed the properties of different oils - sudsiness, softness/hardness, nutrients, shelf-life, etc. Combined that with which other ingredients I wanted to use, infused my herbs, decided on a scent, ran it all through the brambleberry lye calculator and VOILA! . . . at least so far voila! since the real proof of my pudding will be after Christmas when my soap gets put to the test.

Good luck, and if you want to start slowly, there are some really wonderful tried-and-true recipes by people with tons of experience on these boards. The one piece of advice I might give you (not that you asked me) is to get yourself a good set of digital scales if you haven't already. I don't intend to make this a full time habit (shush enablers! la-la-la-la) but I found a pretty decent scale that does both ounces and grams for around $20 at the big box store. A worthy investment.

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

Hi! I'm pretty new too. I've read and learned so much here - enough so that I'm almost scared to start (lye that jumps out of the bowl - yikes!)! I did buy a body butter kit that I finally got around to making yesterday and I've been experimenting with deodorants for a while. But I really want to try some soaps. Read everything you can here and take notes - the knowledge here is amazing!

The CP soap kit from Bramble Berry is AWESOME! It has pretty much everything you'll need, as well as an instruction book! Anne-Marie also did some great CP videos on soap queen TV (search for it on youtube)!

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist