There is no reason to buy soap at the store when you could be making your own soap of better quality at home. When you make your own soap, you are the one choosing what goes into the soap, and preventing beneficial ingredients from being removed.

Soap manufacturers rip you off by taking out the good, moisturizing ingredients, like glycerine, which means that using their soap actually makes your skin dryer and less healthy. They hope that if you use their soap, you will have to buy their other products as well to counteract the negative effects. Making your own soap is a smart decision for your household budget.

Soapmaking is economical - the ingredients are inexpensive and easy to find. Once you learn the basics, you will only want to use your own soap, because there is no end to the variations you can put on soap projects. You will save so much money since you are not buying department store soaps!

Handmade soaps also make welcome and thoughtful gifts at home or for friends. They will beg you to show them how to make their own soap, and you can! Just make sure to find a babysitter for your soapmaking parties, because the kids should be kept away from lye, which is an essential ingredient in soap, and which could harm a child.

The basics of soapmaking are very simple, requiring just a few ingredients. Lye, oil and animal fats bind together to make soap in a process called saponification. It's very important to wear protective gloves during the process, though - lye can burn your skin!

The necessary ingredients - oil, lye and molds to shape them - and books with lots and lots of ideas are all at your local craft store, just waiting for you. Once you learn how to make one kind of soap, it's easy and inexpensive to get little oils and different shapes so that you'll never make the same batch of soap twice!

Some people buy "all natural" or "organic" soaps to try to avoid some of the harsh additives in commercial soaps. But by making your own soap, you avoid the dyes and perfumes that department stores add to even the most "natural" of products. Any family member with allergies or sensitive skin will thank you!

Making soap allows you to make something your whole family can use, while being creative and using your imagination. In fact, your ability to control the ingredients in the soap will ensure that everyone loves it much more than their old store-bought product. With all these variations, you can make new soaps for the rest of your life!