Hi Richie/Abi here.
My hubs Gary tried soapmaking one year for his Christmas craft project. I think he got his ideas from a book from the library. He wound up making and giving these great soap rounds with loofah in them. He bought the soap supplies from a craft store like AC Moore. (check their class schedules, they may offer a class). My mother and grandmother used to make soap every year for laundry washing and housecleaning! They taught me how. It involves rendering pounds of animal fat and combining with LYE and a lot of cooking. It smelled horrid and hurt like the dickens if you got splashed. They always cooked it outside on a fire. I always begged to be sent to summer camp that week. The stuff sure did get stains out though. /Abi

Well.... yes, kinda, sorta, not really....

I "made" soaps one year with my kids back in the days when we made gifts for people, but it wasn't really "making" soap. We bought the big slabs of gylcerine soap and just melted it down, colored it, scented it, and poured into molds, sometimes with objects embedded. Fun, but not really "soap making". (BTW, we got all our supplies from A.C. Moore also.)

A neighbor/fellow market vendor really makes soaps. I just finished one of her spearmint bars and have to visit her place to buy another. She has animals, uses goatsmilk and her home-grown herbs in her soaps. I haven't done that kind of thing...yet.

:)
Dee