Sometimes, unfortunately far too seldom, one reads about overgreasing in soaps. Or maybe you've never heard of this topic before. In this article we explain what it is all about.
What is soap?
Before we get into the topic itself, it's worth taking a look at what soap actually is. And this is easy to explain in principle: Soap is a cleaning agent that is produced by what is known as saponification. Fats, e.g. in the form of vegetable oils, is converted to soap and glycerin using a hydroxide.
What does overgreasing mean?
One speaks of overgreasing when the oils are not completely saponified. This means that oil residues remain in the soap as caring components, thus providing additional care for the skin and protecting it from drying out too much: this is called moisturizing. You have probably already heard of such moisturizing properties of soaps.
However, overgreasing also softens the soap somewhat, which means that soaps with higher overgreasing are more likely to smear when in contact with water. So a lubricating soap is actually a good thing. We have summarized for you here how best to store them, especially to reduce the messy mess to a minimum.
How high should the overgreasing be?
Basically, when buying soap, you should look at how overgreasy the soap is. How high it should be depends on the nature of your own skin. If it is rather greasy, then the overgreasing can be lower. If it is rather dry, then just higher. If you have normal skin, you are well advised to choose the golden mean.
The optimal overgreasing of soaps also depends on the intended use. hands are e.g. B. somewhat more resistant than the quite sensitive facial skin. Soaps with an overgreasing of 3% to 12% are common. Higher levels of excess fat are also possible and make sense for extremely dry skin in particular. However, it must be noted that if the amount of excess fat is very high, the shelf life of the soap may suffer.
When it comes to our soaps, it was important to us that they are suitable for as many skin types as possible. That's why we made sure that the overgreasing was not too low, but also not too high, so that the whole family can use the soap without hesitation.
| Type of soap | Usual overgreasing | Our Nirvana soaps |
| Hand soap | 3-5% | 4% |
| Facial soap | 5-12% | 7% |
| Body soap | 5-12% | 6% |
Curious about our soaps?
Overgreasing is a key benefit of our Nirvana soaps, and there's a whole lot more. Take a look at our products in detail in our shop .
