The Art of Soap Paperback – October 1, 2010

Beware: This book contains no soapmaking technique description or soapmaking instructions! Published in 2010, this book is a compilation of stories from 24 soapmakers around the world. Debbie Chialtas, who always does beautiful work and has meticulously high standards, edited this book.  The Art of Soap  serves the average soapmaker as an entertaining motivational book with gorgeous photographs and charming biographical stories from the featured soapmakers. It is a very inspiring picture book of handmade soap. With all the many soapmaking instructional books available, I can't think of an inspirational book such as this one; it is truly one of a kind. I thank everyone who worked on this book for providing a look at the private thoughts of the soapmakers behind handmade soap. Although a bit pricey, it is worth every penny if you understand it is a gorgeous picture book with inspirational stories; if you anticipate soapmaking instruction, you will be disappointed.

This book has a lot of photographs of beautiful, creative, unique soaps. I don't want to take away from the very talented soapmakers showcased in it, but the book is also overpriced.For the price, I was expecting nicer, glossier pages to feature these soapmakers and their work. When I found this book on Amazon and saw that it was a paperback, I thought the publisher must have put a lot of money into the inside pages and photographs. When I received it, I realized that wasn't the case. The quality of the paper isn't terrible or anything - but it could have been better considering the cost of the book. The photographs themselves are very good but, again, I just personally think they should have been printed on different paper.Still, it IS a good book about talented people and their incredible soap creations.

Whilst this is a 'pretty' book filled with 1 -2 photos of each of the crafters creations and stories of how each soap maker entwines their past, their ideals, and passion into a tale of "why they make soap"' it was diaspointing that the Art is more a CV of soapmakers and not a "how to" reproduce these creations.Many may find this book helpful with ideas on scents, packaging, and creating new recipies, it does not truely cover the art of soap as the title suggests but is a biography of the makers themselves.No recipies.No technique information.Overpriced.A comparison would be buying a book titled "the art of cheese" and only having interviews with the makers and a few pics.

I absolutely love this book. Chialtars spoke to my heart with her style of writing. I was able to understand the love & style of each soaper. The photos are perfect. This is not a book to learn how to make soap. This is a book celebrating the craft of soap making. I have been soaping since 2012. I have collected many soaping books. This is now my favorite. It truly inspired me & makes me feel humbled every time I make soap.Thank you!

When I purchased this book, I knew it is "featuring stunning work and personal stories of 24 unique soap artisans from around the world". So for the price of the book, I was expecting really stunning adventures. How they invented their original techniques, maybe some ideas, a small recipe or good advice from each of them.I expected 24 exclusively original, non-overlapping stunning art pieces.I read the book and was very disappointed. Yes, it features 24 personal stories, but after reading three of these, you have read all: it all started with my love for/nature/fair-trade/woman or grandmother ... i did my first batch... people were interested... so I started business ... I love it since. Ok, let's omit the stories. The craft should be there, 24 stunning pieces of work... well, actually only 9 of these are stunning. Nothing wrong for others, but... I do not find their art to be exceptional/unique enough to be included in a book with this subtitle. I mean, soaps like these can be seen everywhere. No special technique needed (or maybe it is, but it does not look like), no special ingredients, some of them actually even do not look nice! Moreover, apart the personal stories, there is absolutely no mention about the technique itself, no interesting advices, recipes or whatsoever.Ok, so we can say this is apparently just a book, where 24 selected soapmakers make their advertising. But then I do not understand, why they show only a 2-3 soap samples on such a large space they have. Each of them has 3 large photos (sometimes whole 2 pages!) of literally only 2-3 soaps. Example:At the beginning of the story is a photo with 3 arranged soaps. On the following two pages you see 2 whole page photos of THE SAME 3 soaps, just arranged differently!The book could have half of its pages without lost of information and be cheaper.Definitely not worth the money. Actually I would not buy it at all, it could almost be distributed as an advertising booklet.However, to be fair, there are some positives I have from this book. And these are the ideas and pictures of the 9 really stunning soap-master creations. They do not explain technique, but certainly motivate to try something exceptional, showing that we can go beyond our classical image of a bar of soap and make something really original. Fortunately, there are links to web-pages of the soap makers, where I found more info concerning the techniques used, at least for some of them.

There are a lot of books out there that tell you how to make soap. But until now, I had never seen one that really celebrated the creative possibilities of soapmaking. The book is filled with gorgeous full-color photographs of soap that is inspiring and sometimes just downright unbelievable (soap that looks like buttered toast with jam? Really!).Along with the beautiful soap are essays written by the soapmakers. It was so interesting to read about all the different paths that have brought these artists to their art. But it was also fascinating to note the commonalities that led them to making soap, like the desire for more natural skin care or the search for a hobby. Reading their narratives felt like sitting down for a chat over coffee.I'm sure I'll be returning to this book again and again for inspiration in my own soapmaking journey.

Love the photography , so inspiring and beautiful !Debbie catches the beauty of soapmaking ! You will not be disappointed

When I purchased this book, I knew it is "featuring stunning work and personal stories of 24 unique soap artisans from around the world". So for the price of the book, I was expecting really stunning adventures. How they invented their original techniques, maybe some ideas, a small recipe or good advice from each of them.I expected 24 exclusively original, non-overlapping stunning art pieces.I read the book and was very disappointed. Yes, it features 24 personal stories, but after reading three of these, you have read all: it all started with my love for/nature/fair-trade/woman or grandmother ... i did my first batch... people were interested... so I started business ... I love it since. Ok, let's omit the stories. The craft should be there, 24 stunning pieces of work... well, actually only 9 of these are stunning. Nothing wrong for others, but... I do not find their art to be exceptional enough to be included in the book. I mean, soaps like these are seen everywhere. No special technique needed, no special ingredients, some of them actually even do not look nice! Moreover, apart the personal stories, there is absolutely no mention about the technique itself, no interesting advices, recipes or whatsoever.Ok, so we can say this is apparently just a book, where 24 selected soapmakers make their advertising. But then I do not understand, why they show only a 2-3 soap samples on such a large space they have. Each of them has 3 large photos (sometimes whole 2 pages!) of literally only 2-3 soaps. Example:At the beginning of the story is a photo with 3 arranged soaps. On the following two pages you see 2 whole page photos of THE SAME 3 soaps, just arranged differently! The book could have half of its pages without lost of information and be cheaper.Definitely not worth the money. Actually I would not buy it at all, it should be distributed for free as an advertising booklet.

très bon livre, il contient de très beaux savonsmais démontre pas comment reproduire les techniques employé par les savonniers.

他の方のレビューを見て、買うかやめるかかなり悩みましたが、素敵な石鹸を見れるのなら参考にしようと思い勇気を出して購入しました。中身は。。はっきり言ってしまえば、カタログです。ソフトカバーの本で、カタログ状態でこの値段はありえないです。それぞれの作家さんの石鹸はすばらしいものですが、本としての値段が高すぎ。。それだけが残念な本です。

デザイン石鹸の作り方が書いてあると思っていてがっかりです。いいのは写真がきれいなだけ！