Teach Soap

I am trying to make Anne Marie's favorite cold process. 16oz coconut, 16oz palm, 16oz olive oil, 2oz castor oil, 13-19 water, 7.4 lye, recommend 3% superfat. My question is...is the castor oil the superfat and what does the 3% superfat mean? Do i need to run through a calculator? I am so confused and would appreciate any help. The recipes I use show exactly what to use

Welcome to the addiction.

Superfat is more fat in the recipe that the lye can consume, so there is in this case 3% extra fats in the bar of soap and all of the lye is neutralized. No specific oil is the superfat, it is a combination of all that is digested in the saponification of the oils. So the 3% super fat is not any one of these oils it is all of them. HTH

uhh, yep, what mella said! Welcome cinelba!

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Remember, it's not just that we weather the storm, but how we dance in the rain.

Tammy

Please do a higher superfat than 3%. I would do 5 to 7% superfat. 3% will most likely be drying.

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

How do I increase the superfat to 5-7%? Sorry about sounding so clueless, but I am new at this. Thanks for your help!

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

Thank you sooo much for the information!!

Instead of adding more oil, I add less lye, I minus 5 to 7% of lye per batch.

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In my experience, I go all the way down to a 1% superfat and don't find it drying (but my preference is 3-5% normally). Handmade soap is perfectly balanced, as-is, with a 0-1% superfat. Many people appreciate and like the extra oils (after all, what's the point in making handmade soap if it's not extra luxurious and wonderful) but a 0-1% superfat should still be kinder and more gentle to your skin than your average department store syn-det (like say, Lever 2000 or one of the larger brands of soap bars). I rarely soap above a 5% superfat because I find that I like bars that are around 3-5% superfat more than anything higher but it's totally a personal preference. Even if you went to a 1% superfat, your soap would still be soap and it would not be unsafe to use.

That said, most soapers tend to go in the 5-7% range for their superfat so I fully recognize that my 3-5% preference is in the minority. =) Maybe I have different water ii Bellingham? Or skin like a Rhino ...

LOL! =)

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Happy Soaping!

Anne-Marie
blog: www.soap-queen.blogspot.com
supplies: www.brambleberry.com

I beg to differ. Most people don't realize that there are natural variations in oils' SAP values. SAP values are given as a range and some of the ranges are quite wide. There are differences and sometimes extreme range that is more than the average. So if, for example, one of your oils is below the lower range or above in the upper range of the SAP value, that would account for why sometimes soap is lye heavy and sometimes has an oily layer on top. To be on the safe side; especially with smaller batches, it's always safer to err on the side of caution and go with a slightly higher superfat. Coconut oil, for example has a SAP range of 250 to 264. If your oil just happens to be below or above that range your recipe will be slightly off. This is not so critical for larger batches, but it does make a difference for smaller batches.

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

All good food for thought and yes personal preference plays a large role. Washington state is a moist atmosphere. I live in a predominantly dry Mediterranean climate and love 5 to 7 superfat.

ps. one other thought to add, when I cp in Hilo I still do a 5 percent sf, and it is a moist humid environment.

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~bytheSEAsoap~ Mella bythesea, bythesea, bythebeautiful sea

海の皂

ok, so I have played with the lye calculator and different % of superfat. What I can't figure out is, if I change the 3% superfat to say 7% superfat, what end results will there be in the soap??

cinelba, the end result is that your 7% sf soap will have more "free" oils in it, so it may be more moisturizing than the the 3% one. However, many people, when using them side by side, cannot tell the difference, especially when there is only a percentage or two difference in the soaps. Really, this is an experiment that should try, just to see for yourself.

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Remember, it's not just that we weather the storm, but how we dance in the rain.

Tammy