Review: Worth the Read- But Beware!
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 26, 2014
I am extremely picky about quality in a book- especially in an e-book that is self published. Frankly, if you can't communicate effectively and understandbly, I think you have no business trying to write a book.That said, this book is actually pretty decent. The author is able to give information without sounding either overly technical or like a buffoon. There is a comprehensive overview of the soap making process, broken down into steps from setup to cure. The recipes are varied and interesting. There are, however, errors, so PLEASE run anything through a lye calculator before trying them out. The Banana Oatmeal Soap, for example, lists 36 oz water and 15.6 oz lye, while the Brambeberry lye calculator indicates the correct amounts are actually 9.8 oz water and 4.3 oz lye, and that's with a 0% lye discount. I ran several recipes, and all were off. Either way, making them as-is would result in lye-heavy and unusable soap.I would give this book 5 stars if the calculation errors were fixed, and there were reference photos of the soaps. Just fixing the recipe errors would make this a 4-star book.