Perfect, this all makes sense and looks like a great start point! I'll be making soap soon
It's fun, and once you use the good stuff, you won't want to use the grocery store soap ever again.
In addition to the soapmaking forum, there are several good youtube videos by Soap Queen and a couple of others.
It's hard to take good pictures of some of the steps, because it can happen so fast. One minute you're stirring, and the next minute you've got to pour the soap right away.
Make sure you have protective gear- eye protection especially, but long sleeves and rubber/silicone gloves. Lye burns can be very serious and safety is really important here. I say that, and I brew beer in shorts and bare feet most of the time so you know I mean it. I have only spilled soap batter once, but I sure was glad I had on gloves and eye protection. The lye water is very caustic and accidents happen, so that's a big deal. Otherwise, soaping is easy and the supplies are pretty easy to get.
Once you make a regular bar of soap, you can get "fancy" if you choose. I don't use fragrance oils or things as I'm trying to get away from all that stuff so I make my own, but many people love fragrance oils and they are cheaper than essential oils. I have a friend who does a blue/green colored soap with "ocean breeze" scent or something like that and she sells it by the truckload I swear. So once you get the basics down, you can do colored swirls and different decorative things, and pick your own fragrance if you want.
And from there is where I started making body butters, bath bombs, etc- because I had the ingredients on hand from soapmaking and winemaking.
All of this stuff makes great Christmas presents- and really now is the time to start making soap for Christmas.