Superfatting, or adding oils or butters which remain unsaponified, is a great way to add extra conditioning properties to your soaps. Just a small amount can make a huge difference to the quality of the finished bars.
With hot process, I like to do my superfatting at the end of the cooking process to ensure my soaps get the most benefit. By adding the extra oils after the soap has completely saponified, they never come into contact with lye. The result is a pure superfat that doesn’t affect the quality of the added oil or butter.
My favourite oil for superfatting is jojoba, and I add it to my batch at 3%. Keeping the superfat below 5% ensures that the extra oil doesn’t compromise the lather. Cocoa butter is another ingredient I used for superfatting, and I find adding it at 3% adds hardness as well as extra conditioning to the finished soap.
Superfatting doesn’t have to be done with expensive oils and butters. Rapeseed or olive can add a luxurious feel to your soaps.
2 comments:
Hi! I'm going to be making my first batch of soap using the crock pot hot process. What do you mean when you say you superfat using the oil at 3% and keeping it below 5%...? What is the percentage of? All the oils combined? Thanks for the help... having trouble understanding the terms discount percentage also.
mrsmekelly@gmail.com
Hi Michelle! Superfat is just a bit of extra oil that makes your soaps more conditioning. The percentages are of the total weight of your combined oils. So if you've made a batch using 1000g grams of oils, a 3% superfat would be an extra 30g of oil.
I hope this is helpful!
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