# Superfatting . . . what is it



## Krafcik (Dec 21, 2007)

Greetings, I am new here so I need some :help.

Can someone explain the concept of superfatting: what it is, what it does, and provide some sort of examples. I.e. soap recipe a) does not include supperfatting but if you add this then the new recipe will be superfatted.

Thanks all for your :help2


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## kidsngarden (Oct 28, 2007)

Superfatting refers to the amount of fats leftover after saponification. hence the higher the superfat the more conditioning the bar. Just having GM in your soap superfats it a bit.

To calculate a recipe with a superfat (or any soap recipe for that matter!) you use a soap calculator to set your superfat like this one:

www.soapcalc.com

The default superfat on soapcalc is 5% which is what I like to use on all my soaps. That gives me great cleansing and conditioning.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

And if you look at this logically. Any butters and oils that are free floating and not married to the lye, are not saaponified. So it makes you soap soft, and it may not cure correctly if there is too much left over. Sure get your percentages up to 6 or 7%, but true superfatting is nothing but label appeal, otherwise you would have oily hands from sudsing your soap, ruined labels and a too soft of bar of soap.

So a superfatted bar of soap is the opposite of lye heavy, where there isn't enough butters and oils for the lye to marry with. Vicki


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