Bramble Berry's Hot Chocolate FO

[danahuff]

I made shaving soap with BB's Hot Chocolate fo, and it is DIVINE. The whole house smelled like brownies, and my husband was mad because there were no actual brownies. Now after 24 hours, the scent smells great in the soap, and the soap is a nice hot chocolate sort of color. I don't think it will stay that way because I added baker's chocolate to the oils, and when I use that, it tends to darken the soap up as it cures.

Just had to tell everyone that if you're looking for a nice chocolate scent, this was awesome.

 

[Maythorn]

Wow, sounds pretty cool. I think chocolate soap would be a real luxury bar with cocoa butter.

 

[danahuff]

I imagine you are right. I have a chocolate milk bar with shea butter, but I was thinking of ordering cocoa butter and using it in future batches.

 

[Maythorn]

Since this post I'm thinking of making a chocolate bar. Any butter would be nice but milk in the recipe sounds like a given. Very yum!

 

[danahuff]

Maythorn, it turns out great! I just use regular whole milk from a cow. It soaps up very well. Here is the recipe I use:

38% olive oil
30% coconut oil
17% palm oil
10% shea butter (will try cocoa butter some time!)
5% castor oil

My recipe uses 40 oz. of oils, so you'd need to adjust for your own recipe, but for the liquid I use frozen whole milk and stir the lye in slowly a bit at a time. I melt baking chocolate in with the oils. I use only a small amount. For my recipe, I just use 0.625 oz. It darkens to a nice color after a bit of a cure.

 

[Maythorn]

Dana thanks for the recipe! I like the strong lather note in there at 30% coconut. I'm almost out of palm kernel oil and I keep thinking I should just go with coconut. Not have to order PKO anymore just buy Louanna's at Walmart.

It seems like it would be a nice hard bar but very conditioning with all the olive and the castor. Cocoa butter is harder than shea but you probably wouldn't have to change the recipe unless you wanted to for it (except the lye amount).

 

[Rizack2]

I don't make soap, but have bought a few bars of chocolate from Esty, Amazon and locally. I have yet to find a very fragrant one, seems like chocolate is a hard scent to hold onto in soap. I love the smell of it in other things such as sugar scrubs but in soap it's nothing, or fleeting.

 

[danahuff]

This one seems to be sticking, but I will let you know how it does after a full cure. Even after a four-week cure, just plain baker's chocolate leaves a faint scent.

 

[Maythorn]

Here's a thought -- I heard Save On Scents has a Chocolate Decadence that seems to be getting real high marks everywhere I read about it. Strong and lasting. I've never ordered from them and would want to buy more than just that one scent in case they had a minimum order amount

Edit add: I just checked out their website and it looked kind of confusing and expensive. I was interested in a couple of the scents besides the chocolate in small amounts right off. There are strenghts of scent, too.