Super Fat Soap

by Teresa

I use a recipe and I calculate it with 6 percent in calculator spot for super fat.


Now my question is, do I then hold out some of the oil FROM the recipe to super fat with or do I use oils that are not included in my recipe, sort of like extra oil not calculated, or does the 6 percent calculator do everything for me?

I don't understand what super fat means with the calculator.

Thanx for your time.....Teresa

Answer:

Not to worry Teresa. The lye calculator figures it all out for you...you don't have to do anything.

The lye calculator figures out how much lye you need for the soap to have 6% free oils in the final bars of soap. There is no need to add more oils or hold back any oils.

Superfatting just means leaving oil unsaponified in the final soaps.

Hope this helps you to understand,
Cathy

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by: Jennifer

Theresa, thank you for asking this question and Cathy answering. I have been on the search of this same exact question for months and finally came across this today. Now I do not feel like I am sitting here in the dark!!
Time to go make some soap finally!!!!
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by: Mary Ann

Cathy
You are saying the lower the superfatting the softer more oily the soap will be when dry and the higher the number will result in a harder bar? I've not done enough soaping to figure out all the terms. Thanks.

Answer:

If the soap has a 5% superfat it will have less free oil in it than a soap that has 10% superfat.

That is what superfat means...the amount of free oil left in a recipe.

If you reduce the required amount of lye needed to turn oil into soap you will have some oil left in the final soap.

Lets pretend that for every 10 molecules of oil you need 5 molecules of lye in order to make the oil turn into soap.

Now if you left the recipe like that it would be purely cleansing and would be too harsh for your skin. That is why we like to reduce the amount of lye (superfat a recipe).

In order to make the recipe more appealing for your skin we would only use say 4 molecules of lye for the 10 molecules of oil. That way we would have 2 molecules of free oil in the final soap bars and it would be much more gentle on the skin.

Sure hope that explanation helps,
Cathy

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