If you are familiar with basic soap chemistry, you know that when oils, fats, or butters are mixed with sodium or potassium hydroxide (lye) it results in a chemical process called saponification and the result is soap (and glycerin).

If you are familiar with the basic rules for the ingredient declaration on a cosmetic label, you know that you can list what goes INTO the pot, or what comes OUT of the pot. You probably also know that the correct, accepted name should be used for each ingredient. So what do you call unsaponified oils?

OUT of the Pot

What comes OUT of the pot is kind of tricky because the chemical reaction of saponification created some NEW things that didn’t exist when the individual items were poured INTO the pot.

— Glycerin

The glycerin is separated from the oils/fats/butters during the saponification process, so it comes out of the pot as its own self. It gets listed in the ingredient declaration as “glycerin.” The amount of glycerin is relative the the amount of lye; the formula is contained in my recent post on Glycerin.

— Saponified Oils

Of course, there are the saponified oils which make up the bulk of what comes out of the pot. They are a new thing and are listed in the ingredient declaration by their correct chemical name (see the list below).

— Unsaponified Oils

Aahhh, but what about the UNsaponified oils? These come about from the superfat or lye discount used, either for safety or to make the soap more moisturizing. How do you know what they are, and how are they listed in the ingredient declaration?

The first thing to know is that they probably aren’t whole oils any more. Some of the fatty acids have been saponified into soap, and some haven’t. To complicate matters, they could be complete oil molecules (tri-glycerides) or they could be broken down and be di-glycerides (two fatty acid chains) or even mono-glycerides (one chain). There’s no way to know.

Luckily, there is a name for that in the cosmetic ingredient dictionary – glycerides. But it has to specify which oil the glycerides are from.

The following table lists the correct name for the saponified oil (using sodium hydroxide) AND the correct name for the unsaponified glycerides for some of the more common oils used in soapmaking.

Oil/fat/butter	Saponified	Unsaponified
Coconut oil	Sodium Cocoate	Cocoglycerides
Olive Oil	Sodium Olivate	Olive Glycerides
Palm Oil	Sodium Palmate	Palm Glycerides
Palm Kernel Oil	Sodium Palm Kernelate	Palm Kernel Glycerides
Shea Butter	Sodium Shea Butterate	Shea Butter Glycerides
Lard	Sodium Lardate	Lard Glycerides

Using some basic math, you can actually calculate the percentages of each soaponified oil and oil glycerides in the final bar. Well, probably close enough to create an accurate ingredient declaration.

INTO the Pot

Listing what goes INTO the pot is pretty straightforward. Easy, in fact. Just list all of the ingredients that you measured and put into the pot! The name to use is the common English name for BOTANICALS and the chemical name for everything else (you should be able to get it from your supplier). And, of course, all the components of blended ingredients such as color additives or preservatives.