this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2025
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I was banned from r/soapmaking because I refused to accept that buying soap that someone else made, melting it and adding glitter and perfume, and putting it into moulds was making soap.
I raise the pigs, render the lard, and turn the lard into soap using lye. I make soap. They do arts and crafts using soap.
My son just got a soapmaking kit. He had a great time adding dye and glitter to his "homemade" soaps. And that's great... for a seven-year-old.
Yup. I have no issue with people doing arts and crafts with soap, especially 7 year olds.
Seriously?! I had no idea people did that, assumed they were doing like me, lye and fat. Saw an idiot woman on YouTube post:
"NOT using lye on MY skin!"
Replied:
"It's no longer lye after the chemical reactions. And this is why we need better science education for small children. You would have failed my 4th-grade science class."
Yes. Melt and pour soap uses glycerine soap that people buy in huge blocks at the craft store, like Michael's. They melt it, add colour, trinkets, glitter, and perfume, and pour it into moulds. Arts and crafts.
Actively adding glitter to our waterways really seems to be the dumbest thing about all of this.
That is very true. I would hope that they use edible or biodegradable glitter instead of the horrible plastic stuff.
As long as you're not saying you have to raise pigs to be a soap maker I agree with you.
A soap maker makes soap. I make soap. If you don't make the soap you are doing arts and crafts with soap that someone else made. Both are fine and fun but you're not a soap maker if you don't make the soap.
I mean like store bought lard and such not pre-made soap. I know a lot of people that "make" soap and a few people who do actually make soap and they usually do it for allergen reasons because even the fragrance free products irritate their skin.
As long as you're buying oil or fat and lye or potash and making soap that's soap making. You're making soap. Most of our soaps are lard based but use other oils to improve the texture. Some, like our shaving soap, have no lard in them. I'm just taking about the people who buy big blocks of soap at the craft store, melt it and pour it, and call themselves soap makers.
If you did 99% of that and added 1% of premade oils/scents, is it still soapmaking? 80%? 40%? Where's the arbitrary line? I can see your point but I wouldn't die on the hill. I'd rather distinguish my product by virtue of exactly your process. That's far more valuable than the label.
The process of making soap separates the state where soap does not exist from the state where soap does exist. If your process begins with fats and a base and ends with soap you are making soap. If your process starts with soap and ends with soap with color, trinkets, perfume, and glitter in pretty shapes you are not making soap, you are doing arts and crafts with soap that someone else made.
Sometimes, we use tomatoes, peppers, and onions that we grow in our garden to make spaghetti sauce. Sometimes, when we're pressed for time we open a jar and pour sauce into a pot. In one case we are making sauce. In the other we are not. If I take that jarred sauce and add sliced sausage I am enhancing the sauce but I am not making the sauce.
So, in your question, if 99% of my process is buying soap that someone else made and 1% of it is adding oil to that already made soap then, no, that is not making soap. If you saponify that 1% of oil into soap then the 1% of soap did not exist before and does now so you made that 1% of the soap.
As I've said repeatedly, there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing arts and crafts by buying melt and pour soap, adding trinkets, glitter, colour, and perfume and pouring it into interesting moulds but there is no saponification and therefore no soap making happening. You're making pretty bars of soap but you're not making soap.
Just because you're so passionate about it I feel like arguing you, but I can't come up with any soap-specific arguments.
We could argue about something else.
No we couldn't!
I came here for an argument. That was just contradiction. An argument is a collective series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
I may be arguing on my spare time.
Amateur.
I'm not even mildly part of the hobby, and even I am of the firm opinion that "soapmaking" involves the actual making of soap.
Nobody would call me a cook if I ran to the closest restaurant, grabbed some dish, added some spice and herbs on the way back, and "Voilla, steak de Neidu!"
Also, soap has a melting point?
Glycerine soap does. It's called melt and pour soap.
https://canada.michaels.com/search?q=Melt+and+pour
So I am on your side. What they are doing is not making soap as much as accessorizing existing soap.