Soap Making
Traditional Soap Making
Dates May 25th, June 22nd
This one day course will give the theoretical knowledge and practical skill to make your own cold-pressed soap at home. The class will be capped at 4 participants and will be taught by Jan Kates from Carwoola in rural SE NSW, owner of The Champagne Soapery.
COST: $225
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The aim of the soap making workshop is to arm you with enough theory and hands on practice to give you confidence to continue to make soap at home.
Your class notes will include links to get further information but the main thing is to just jump in and do it. There is nothing complicated about making soap once you understand the science and the process.
Everyone will each make a basic batch of soap. You will take your basic loaf of soap home with you for you and your family to enjoy once it has cured.
In the theory part of the class you will use an on-line tool to design your very own recipe. If time permits you will make that recipe under direct supervision and take that batch home with you as well.
The day is designed to be a safe and fun learning experience for everyone.





Jan Kates: It's important to me that people feel they can carry on with this new hobby on their own after the class.
I have been a soap maker for over 2 years and it all started when I took a class run by a local shop
owner and soap maker. She was an amazing teacher that took the time to explain the science behind
what was happening. I have a background in food science after my first job as a laboratory
technician in a cheese factory. So this really rekindled my interest in basic science and the similarity
to cake baking wasn’t lost on me either. As it happens it also produces about the same amount of
washing up that doesn’t fit in the dishwasher. Being creative, in any field, is a messy business!
I did quite a number of lessons over an 18 month period, mainly because I loved my teacher who is
amazing (shout out to Bree from Wattlebird Canberra) and it gave me an opportunity to do some
soapmaking at home, find gaps in my knowledge or techniques, do more classes etc to address those
gaps or gain confidence until I became confident enough to go it alone. At some point I realised
retirement is looming and the thought of not going to paid work every day was getting scary. I
decided I needed to be self-employed by the time I enter retirement so I could choose when I
worked or not. That was when it occurred to me that soap making fits that bill perfectly.
But soap making, and teaching is more to me than just my retirement plan. There is an edge of
excitement and even trepidation with every batch I make because even with tried and true recipes
and techniques there is always that panic filled moment when it looks like I may have misjudged the
timing, or introduced a new ingredient that doesn’t act the way I anticipated. There is often a fine
line between a great batch and a massive fail, referred to in soaping circles as “soap on a stick” when
things get out of control too fast and the soap has solidified still in the bowl and you can’t even get
the spatula out without a chisel. But when everything does go to plan – or is even better than the
plan, the satisfaction is immeasurable.
Soapmaking scratches that itch we creatives have to use really simple standard household and
pantry items to produce something of high quality and functionality for ourselves and our families. It
is something our great grandparents did as a matter of necessity that has since become a lost skill
with the emergence of mass production of household consumables. The advantage that we have as
modern soapmakers that our forebears did not is a plethora of ingredient choices and access to
scientific tools to avoid the oft mentioned horror stories of using Grandma’s lye soap.
Come and learn how to design your own soap and learn the safe way to make it so you take that
knowledge and expand on it at your own pace after the workshop.