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4 - Superfatting your soap

0 - Why and how to make your own soap?
1 - How: the saponification process
2 - Using caustic soda: safety precautions
3 - Using caustic soda: the online calculators
4 - Superfatting your soap


Superfatting your soap means you will use excess oil, i.e. more oil than necessary for saponification. Consequently, not all the oil used will be turned into soap; some of it will remain as oil.
When you use any detergent, shower gel, or even homemade soap, it destroys the skin's protective film, which takes a few hours to reconstitute. Washing too often will weaken your skin. When your skin is dry for example, it's actually better not to wash - with soap or gel - the dry and sensitive parts every day rather than trying to fix them with cream afterward.

The oil contained in superfatted soap temporarily replaces this natural film by leaving an oily (but not greasy) film on the skin. This and the natural glycerine contained in cold process soap make homemade soaps very good for the skin although their Ph is a bit higher (around 9) that the skin.

Superfatting...

There are two different methods to superfat a soap: basically before or after the trace. The trace is the moment you know saponification has started. After this step, you are supposed to add colors, scents, and, if you chose to do so, superfat oils.
    Superfatting your soap
  • ... by a lye reduction
You want to use a given amount of oil and from that information, you will adapt the quantity of lye to use to make it fit the % of superfat oil you want (see paragraph on The Sage). It means you will use all the oils of your recipe right from the beginning.



  • ... after trace
Superfatting your soapBy superfatting after trace, you have two different amounts of oil in your recipe. Let's say that you want to make a batch with 500 g oil, this whole quantity is meant to be saponified: no lye reduction here since you want a 0 % fat excess. However, you will add the superfat oil later, after the trace. For a 5 % fat excess, you will add 25 g of oil. You will actually use 525 g of oil in total.

In the first case, with a lye reduction, the untransformed oils remaining in the soap will be the same as in the recipe, with the same proportions. However when superfatting after trace, one considers that the oils added before trace will be entirely transformed at the end of the process; the only actual oil remaining will be your superfat oil.

The advantage of such a method (after trace) is that you choose which oil will (or will not) remain on your skin after showering. When I use lard, I don't want it to be one of the superfat oils (which it would be with a lye reduction). Same thing when you use sensitive oil: it's better to have them transformed, and not remain as oil. Your soap could go rancid over time (read more on oils you can use).

I actually use a combination of both methods: a lye reduction so as to have a 1 % fat excess as a safety precaution, then I add 5 % of the total oil weight which makes a 6 % superfat.

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Comments

  1. SuzanaJuly 10, 2014 at 7:16 PM

    what are the best oils for superfatting??
    Thanks,
    Suzana

    ReplyDelete

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