Advantages are, fun project, you get to experiment with different scents and herbs. If you are allergic, especially to scents and additives, you will benefit from the purity level.
My favorite handmade soap is oatmeal...the whole oats act like a scrubby, and it is exhilarating to me. I also love rose and lavendar scented soaps....and use teatree oil soaps for disinfecting and deep cleaning.
I don't make them any more, and buy these now at our co-op. They are homemade by a local.

With candles, some people can only have parrifin candles burning due to sensitivities, but you have to take into consideration, if a pet or kid eats parrafin, that is not good.

Thanks for the info! I was thinking about starting to make my own soap, but didn't know if I could use the same stuff or if I needed separate utensils (though, I was fairly confident I'd need separate) after watching the videos on about.com.

Do you think it's cheaper to make your own or buy it at the store? What are some of the advantages to making your own?

I would not even do them in the kithchen if there are children there. Lyes, parrafin....and other stuff used are poison. Also, I kept utensils separate. I did them in a workshed. It has been a lot of years ago.

Can you use your normal kitchen utensils to make those, or do you have to have separate ones? i was watching a vid of it, and they used a stick mixer--I've got one, but I don't want to ruin it so that I can't use it for cooking anymore.

I LOVE them

Gabriel, do you make things like candles and soaps?

Thanks Farmgirl....I'll see if I can wrestle the TV from the kids...If not, I will note the special title, and can order it....Yes I love ants

Gabriel, weren't you the one interested in ants? I noticed that Nova (on PBS) is going to have an episode on them tonight. I was thinking you might be interested.