How much butter? (shea, cocoa, illipe, kokum, or mango)

[HeartlandSoap]

Hi all,

I have finally gotten to the point that I have a recipe that I like with just the oils that I want to use. I have tried to find a nice hard bar but also find one that won't melt easily and is still conditioning. Such a fine line indeed.

Anyway, I want to add a butter to add to the hardness and the conditioning.

Butters aren't cheap. But I want to add enough to make a noticeable difference in the hardness.

What is the best percentage to start with?

 

[IrishLass]

I would say that anywhere between 5% and 10% is good. I use 6% cocoa butter in my Castile-type soap and it lends a good hardness to it.

IrishLass

 

[wiccaronja]

Olive oil makes a very hard soap. Or cacao butter. almond butter. I use 10-20%.

And I use 60-70% of butters for a hard soap.

Good luck ;-)

 

[holly99]

I have used various amounts but I've decided that I like butters at only 5% and my bars are nice and hard but that is also because of the other solid oils I use. Not to mention that olive makes a hard bar and so on...

 

[HeartlandSoap]

Thanks! I am going to try a 10% illipe in my current recipe and see what happens.

I did look at some things on Soapcalc last night though and found that Mango butter looks to be a good balance of hard and conditioning. Harder than Shea but just as conditioning.

Illipe is the hardest at this point. But also the most spendy.

 

[holly99]

Mango is the butter I prefer to use. I love it!

 

[HeartlandSoap]

Mango is the butter I prefer to use. I love it!

Yeah, I was thinking about that too. I am going to try some lip balms and salves and wanted to save the Mango for those because I hate grainy lip balms and have heard Shea can be grainy.

Mango is half the price of Illipe.

Just finished my batch a while ago. I do CP so will know in a day or so how it looks. Won't know for a few weeks about the smell.

 

[alwaysme07]

Cocoa butter makes a lovely soap, every recipes I add different amount to see if there is any differents to the soaps and as far as I can tell there isn't. I'm out of cocoa butter so I have to play with the shea butter, but that not a bad soap. My mother like the shea over the cocoa one.

 

[kaseencook]

I just made a cp batch today with coco butter, it was:

300g cocoa butter
70g coconut oil (for bubbles)
550g of olive oil

230g of water
120g of Lye
(25% water as a percent of oil, very low amount of water)

I made it at about 11am, and when I got back to it this afternoon at about 5pm it was very hard and I cut it up and it was even dry/cured enough to use a soap stamp on without sticking.... One of my favorites! I like the hard and dense ones.

 

[carebear]

sounds delightful!!!

 

[Zenobiah]

Sounds wonderful! Hubby prefers OO/CO soap for shaving.