Natural Soap. Melinda Coss
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For Railea, Lily, Kai, Isabel, Leo, Max and Jed – my magnificent seven.
First published in 2011 by New Holland Publishers (UK) Ltd
London • Cape Town • Sydney • Auckland
Garfield House
86–88 Edgware Rd
London W2 2EA
United Kingdom
80 McKenzie Street
Cape Town 8001
South Africa
Unit 1
66 Gibbes Street
Chatswood
NSW 2067
Australia
218 Lake Road
Northcote
Auckland
New Zealand
Text copyright © 2011 Melinda Coss
Copyright © 2011 New Holland Publishers (UK) Ltd
Melinda Coss has asserted her moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.
ISBN 978 1 84773 854 7
Publisher: Clare Sayer
Senior Editor: Emma Pattison
Designer: Lucy Parissi
Photography: Jon Meade
Production: Laurence Poos
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Reproduction by Modern Age Repro House Ltd, Hong Kong
Printed and bound in Singapore by Tien Wah Press (PTE) Ltd
The formulations in this book are copyrighted and cannot be made for re-sale.
The soap recipes in this book are not directly converted from metric to imperial based on 28.35 g per oz but on 25 g per oz. This adjustment was made to the recipes to achieve a safe and easy-to-weigh alternative. Please use either metric or imperial measurements but don’t mix the two.
The information in this book has been carefully researched and all efforts have been made to ensure accuracy. The author and publisher accept no responsibility for any injuries, damage or losses incurred either during, or subsequent to, following the instructions in this book.
Contents
Saponification, Superfatting and Essential Stuff
CREAMS, BALMS, WHIPS AND MELTS
SETTING UP A SOAP MAKING BUSINESS
INDEX
RESOURCES
Introduction
THE VAST MAJORITY OF MY WORKING life has been spent in the design and marketing of craft products. For many years I was involved in knitting and embroidery and wrote numerous books on those subjects, but in the mid-nineties I discovered soap making and my life was turned completely upside down. It is hard to imagine how a simple bar of soap can fundamentally change lives but history shows that it truly can.
Firstly, if you look at soap as a simple hygiene product it has and does undoubtedly fight disease and save lives. In addition, soap presents creative marketing people with an irresistible blank canvas. They begin with a product that is used by men, women and children worldwide in all their wonderful shapes, colours, sizes and income brackets and create, design and package a simple bar of soap to fulfil needs, lifestyles and aspirations. I am frequently asked the question ‘can you really make a living making and selling soap?’. The answer is that 70 per cent of people use soap and the other 30 per cent just need to be persuaded. This is a dream market for an entrepreneur but your success or failure will depend on your business acumen, your creativity, your marketing skills and your product, in that order.
Soap making sent me on the hugely challenging adventure of building an enterprise from scratch with traditional values and methods and with the aim of making enough volume to supply supermarkets. My creative and business learning curve was steep and fruitful, and in the last five years I have had the privilege of sharing that learning curve with entrepreneurial spirits