Teach Soap

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"A baby goat can stand up within minutes of being born, and know what its looking for and pretty much where the udder is. Yet people think it happened by accident, and there is no Creator. Guess again!"

Katie M Molalla Oregon

Superfatting at trace is a waste of time. The lye is still active at this point. Add everything together.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Tee hee....I can vouch. It all felt the same in the end doing it before or after...

This entry from Wikipedia disagrees...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap

..."Often, emollients such as jojoba oil or shea butter are added 'at trace' (the point at which the saponification process is sufficiently advanced that the soap has begun to thicken), after most of the oils have saponified, so that they remain unreacted in the finished soap. Superfatting can also be accomplished through a process called superfat discount, where, instead of putting in extra fats, the soap maker puts in less lye."

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Yup...take Wiki with a grain of salt.

Saponification does NOT stop at trace.

If you add all the oils together, then what ever is over the amount the lye with react with will not saponify and your soap will be superfatted. HOWEVER, if you are adding a combo of oils and you only want the a certain oil to be your superfatter, then you need to add at trace. The lye doesn't discriminate.

OK....Here's one time I don't agree with soapbuddy.

If you break down percentages for superfatting. Say you make a bar that is 50% coconut and 50% palm oil. If you add all the superfat oils at the beginning then you end up with a bar that is superfatted with 50% coconut and 50% palm.

But if you add jojoba oil at trace, and after the lye starts the saponification process, then you end up with 100% jojoba superfatting....which would feel much more different to your skin than the 50-50 coconut oil-palm oil superfat.

I'm basing my opinion on laws of physics and chemistry and soapmaking experience. I haven't been making soap since 1969 but only since 2003. I've done my own trials with pouring half of my batch into molds then superfatting the other half with only a 2-3% superfat and the results were dramatically different. I've done this multiple times using different oils and had different results based on the type of oil used for superfatting. My control group stayed consistent to rule out human error.

Try it and see for yourself and I'll bet you'll change your opinion.