Making homemade soap is a great alternative to purchasing commercially made soap that may not fit your needs. Making your own soap allows you to ensure your skin is healthy as you enjoy the feeling of satisfaction that comes from creating a product all your own.

One of the most obvious benefits of making your own soap is that you can make sure the all the good stuff stays in - manufacturers of beauty products remove humectants like glycerine, which naturally occur in soap and which are essential to moisturizing skin, so that they can manufacture and sell those ingredients separately. By ensuring that you have dry skin, they ensure that they will make a profit. Making your own soap means you are spending less by leaving in more - it's what a wise consumer does!

Making soap is an inexpensive hobby, and really saves an enormous portion of the cost you would spend on fancy department store soaps. The ingredients are simple and easy to find, and what's more, you can create so many variations with different scents and additions. Once you learn the basics, you will only want to use your own soap.

The projects can also mean saving money on gifts - lovely handmade soaps really show you care, and can be given to friends, family and co-workers. You can even share your newfound knowledge by throwing a party where you teach people how to make their own handmade soaps - just keep the kids away from these parties, because the ingredients in the soap involve acids that could hurt a child.

The basic ingredients for soap making are lye, oil and animal fats, which join together to make soap in a process called saponification. You must always wear protective gloves when making soap, as lye can burn or irritate your skin.

The ingredients for soap - oil, lye and molds to shape them - along with instruction books, can all easily be found in a craft store. And just as with any craft, a little knowledge of the basics means you can create endless variations with different shapes and oils.

It's tempting to "go organic" and buy expensive soaps in an effort to avoid harsh additives. But by making your own soap, you can protect your family members from allergens and other irritants that come from perfumes and dyes in department store soaps!

When you make soap, you are being both creative and useful. It's likely that you will find your homemade soap to be better for your skin than the soap you used to buy at the store, because you are in control of what goes in and what comes out of the soap. The opportunities for the fun and creativity know no bounds!