Thanks for all of the comments and suggestions. Sewnoma, I wish I lived near you and could learn by watching an expert!

Oh goodness, I'm so rusty I'll probably destroy at least one batch trying to get back into the swing of things!!

It is a lot of fun though, and for me it was really addicting. Just as addicting as quilting is turning out to be!

Interesting! I had considered trying to make some home-made soaps. It is a little more complicated than I thought. Maybe I will try some melt and pour and some without lye and leave it to those of you who are a little more into it.

Again, so much knowledge here. Thanks for all the info. Truly at this time, this is over my head to start into it. I've made over 60 washcloth and dishcloths for gifting. I was planning on giving soaps with them, NOW I'm not making them. was planning on it, but so much is involved, I'll try to find a shop that sells homemade soaps as gifts. I don't know if the giftees will appreciate the homemade soaps for the price I'll pay. Maybe for by dh's boss, I always make her a gift, and she seems to like them.

I love this thread and will continue to follow it. Very interesting information.

Thank you to all that have contributed to it.

Lynnie, if you want to buy a relatively large amount of soap (like over a dozen bars), I'd recommend going someplace like etsy and contacting some of the soap sellers and see if they'll give you a bulk discount. My individual soaps sold for a lot more than if someone was willing to buy a whole batch, especially if they didn't want me to package them (I had fancy boxes, I trimmed each bar, etc.). That saved me time and materials and I'd give steep discounts (nearly half off) if they'd buy an entire batch at a time and all they wanted was for me to slice it into bars for them. My batches were 16 or 32 bars each, depending on which mold I was using. Plus it's so much less hassle to box up a dozen or so bars for one person, rather than a dozen individual sales. I loved my (few) bulk-buy customers!

Can't hurt to ask!

Thanks for the advice. i'll ck tomorrow morning

Where was the Restaurant supply store? I live near Sacramento.