What’s the process that makes it good at something so far off from its composition?
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I am a chemist working for a big soap manufacturer. Let me try to explain.
I will call oil and fat only fat in the future, because chemically they are not so different.
Fats like fats oils and water likes water, this is why they don’t mix.
In the process of soap making a part of the fat molecule is changed to like water. This means that the molecule is no longer a fat, that likes fat, but a new molecule, called a surfactant that has a part that likes fat and a part that likes water.
This new molecule likes to be on the surface where water and and oil touch.
When the concentration of surfactant gets high enough the part where the oil and water touch gets saturated. For these molecules to still touch both water and fat either the fat or the water needs to broken up in tiny balls so more of these surfactants fit on the area where fat and water touch.
These tiny balls of fat can easily be washed away in an access of water.
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