Handmade Soap Making

We also offer this class privately, customized to your needs. Let us help you accelerate your progress! Email us for details at info at soapshed.com

This one day workshop provides an overview of cold-process soap making geared to beginning soapmakers and those who would like to make soap for the first time.

Cold process soap making is the old-fashioned process that combines sodium hydroxide with fats and oils, and creates a soap that cleans with kindness due to the glycerine created and retained in the soap. We do not teach ‘melt and pour’ glycerine soapcrafting or hot process soap in this workshop.

The workshop fee includes class lecture, demonstration & production time from 9:30am through 4:30pm; lunch, beverages and snacks; all supplies and materials needed for class (oils, butters, lye, fragrances, safety goggles, gloves, aprons, and soap mold to take your soap home) and the Workshop Workbook including classroom lecture notes, helpful online resources, and recommended soap making suppliers.

A tour of Soap Shed production areas, soap molds, drying racks, cutting, packaging, retail customer shop, and shipping areas will be provided.

Workshop Topics and Schedule

This session will introduce you to soap making procedures required to make soap from scratch. The facilitators will demonstrate how to make a batch of soap, covering:

The History of Making Soap from Scratch

Basic Soap Chemistry

Safety Precautions working with Lye (sodium hydroxide)

Measuring, Mixing and Monitoring Temperatures

Soap Molds, Liners and other Necessary Equipment

Demonstration of Making Single Fat or Oil Soap

Oils, Butters, Milks and botanicals

Essential Oils, Fragrances and Blending

Following a short lunch break, you will make your first batch of soap. Then we’ll introduce you to the Processing phase, where we evaluate soap to determine its readiness for cutting, and demonstrate how to use a variety of soap molds, log splitters and different size bar cutters.

We’ll show you our current drying rack rooms (as well as different methods when our business was smaller) and explain our curing process.

Then we’ll switch gears and begin looking in depth at SAP values for oils and butters you may choose to work with on your own, and resources to help you create your own soap recipes. You will take home your batch of soap in its own travel mold for processing later yourself.

The ‘classroom’ part of our one day workshop is over about 4:30 pm.

Supplies and Materials

We will provide all Supplies and Materials you need for the workshops, including safety goggles, gloves, aprons and molds. Please wear old clothes so if you splatter olive oil or butters on them, you won’t be heartbroken. Long sleeves, full length pants and closed toed shoes protect your skin best so please wear them.

Each participant will receive a notebook with written material on each topic we cover, along with supplier information and recipes to get you started.

After receiving safety instructions and guidance about the protective gear you should always wear (safety goggles, etc), you must sign a Liability Waiver for us before being allowed around ‘lye’ and the production area.

And if you don't understand why a liability waiver is needed when visitors are allowed around sodium hydroxide or lye, well, that's one of the reasons you need this workshop before you make soap on your own!

Workshop Dates

Available dates are listed below for you to select from. If you select a workshop that states 'Waiting List Only' you will be added to the waiting list for the workshop scheduled for that date, and contacted if anyone drops out.

We also offer this class privately, customized to your needs. Let us help you accelerate your progress! Email us for details at info at soapshed.com

Workshop Timeframes

All Day: 9:30am – 4:30pm

Workshop Location

The workshop will be held at The Soap Shed, Spruce Pine, North Carolina

About The Facilitators

Tim Tyndall started making cold process soap in 1998, and is a science professor by education and training, having been a science teacher and college administrator for 30 years in chemistry, biology, botany and health sciences. 'Dr.T' has been teaching handmade soapmaking weekend classes and week long classes at the John C Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC since 2001.

Karen Wylie created The Soap Shed to sell soap wholesale, consignment, at craft shows, retail shop, and from the soapshed.com website. She also coordinates production, quality control and packaging.

In response to requests for soapmaking demonstrations, The Soap Shed opened its doors to the public in 2000. During the Blue Ridge mountain tourist season (May-October), visitors can see soap made and select from 150 varieties in their retail shop.

Prior to creating The Soap Shed, Tim & Karen were business educators and consultants to clients in the furniture & textile industries. When these industries literally left the USA in the mid 1990s, Tim and Karen reinvented their lives and livelihood by creating The Soap Shed at midlife, at ages 52 & 40, respectively.

Their unusual backgrounds - combined with their first hand experience in creating and running a handmade soap business for 20 successful years - provide Tim and Karen with unique perspectives on making and selling handmade soap.

How To Register

Register for this Workshop by putting it in your shopping cart and checking out. You may also pay by check or money order in the amount of $165.00 and mailing it to The Soap Shed, 179 Meadow View Road, Spruce Pine, NC 28777.

We prefer no more than six participants in each workshop, and need at least three participants for each workshop to be a ‘GO’. Please feel free to contact us at 877-404-SOAP with any questions you have. And please read our cancellation policy below before signing up.

Cancellation Policy

Our workshops are planned for small groups of 4-6 participants, and often require us to turn away additional participants when the workshops fill.

Should you need to cancel your attendance - for any reason - please let us know as soon as possible. If we can fill your space prior to 7 days before the workshop, you will receive a refund of your payment minus a $45 non-refundable deposit. If we cannot fill your space at that point, you will receive half of your original payment in the form of a refund check.

If you give us less than 7 days notice or just don’t show up for the workshop(s), no refund or credit will be given. You are welcome to send someone else in your place if you cannot attend yourself.

Where To Stay

A list of private and chain hotels and motels within 20 miles of The Soap Shed will be provided when you register. Asheville and Boone are great towns to stay in, but they are an hour's drive from Spruce Pine.

How to Get to Spruce Pine, North Carolina

We are located in Northwestern North Carolina, tucked up close to the Tennessee state line. We are one hour east of Asheville, one hour south of Boone, 2 hours north of Greenville-Spartanburg SC, and 2 hours northwest of Charlotte.

For anyone flying in, Charlotte-Douglas Airport and Greenville-Spartanburg Airport are larger airports than Asheville, but the Asheville Airport is about an hour and 15 minutes drive from here. Because of the distance, we regret we are unable to offer airport transportation assistance. Car rental from Asheville is usually far less expensive than limousine.