Title: Milk Soaps
Author: Anne-Marie Faiola
Publication Date: April 30, 2019
Pages: 272
Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC
Date Started: November 8, 2018
Date Finished: November 9, 2018
Format: Adobe Digital

*I would like to thank the publisher, author, and NetGalley for providing an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

There is just something about homemade milk soap that can’t be beat. By making it yourself, you get the ultimate decisions regarding lather, moisturizing properties, scent and color. I myself have dabbled in the craft using goat milk, and have been pleased with the results, but have always desired more background in order to advance my skill and product appearance.

Milk Soap is written by Anne-Marie Faiola, the founder and CEO of Brambleberry. If you are at all interested in making soap of any kind, Brambleberry is your best friend. The book itself focuses on the basics of soap making, briefly touching on the math and chemistry underlying the process, before moving onto a plethora of recipes that include milk in one way or another. What surprised me about the recipes were the breadth of milk types used! There were the expected goat and cow milk recipes, but donkey and split pea were a bit of a shock! But that’s half the fun of making soap, you can do whatever you want with it, go crazy!

Faiola included recipes that varied the ratios and types of fats and oils used to react with lye to create soap. While I loved the descriptions of each fat independently, I feel the recipes would have benefited from a brief description in any form of the qualities the finished product would have, like lather, hardness, and texture.

Most of the techniques focused on in the book surrounded varying aesthetic properties of the soap making process. So if you want run of the mill, uncolored soap, this book probably isn’t for you. However, if tie-dyed, sparkly, or scalloped soap sound appealing, there are more methods described in this book than I could even imagine. The recipes immediately sparked my creative flair, and you can surely bet I will be making soap in the coming days inspired by this book!

Overall, 3.5/5 moose