Recipe with cocoa butter

[Alfa_Lazcares]

Sooo.... i finally got cocoa butter and I was tinkering with % and i am not sure what to do. What do you think about this recipe I just came up with?

5% Castor
5% Almond
10% Cocoa butter
20% Coconut
30% Olive
30% Palm

Should I give it a go? Should I up the Olive and lower the Palm? What do you think?

 

[dixiedragon]

I think this recipe looks fine to start with. What is you goal? i know it's to make "good" soap, but how are you defining that? Do you want it to be hard? Lather well? More cleansing or more gentle? Do you want to swirl?

 

[amd]

My opinion: I would lower the coconut oil just a bit more - with cocoa butter you'll get a hard(er) bar - and I would add the adjustment to the almond oil. Either way it will be soap.

 

[dibbles]

I think it fine to go ahead and try it. If anything, I’d lower the palm and add to the almond oil.

 

[lsg]

It looks pretty good to me. I would probably omit the sweet almond oil and up the Castor to 8% and the palm oil to 32%.

 

[shunt2011]

I would either drop the almond or drop the Palm by 5 and up the almond. I don’t use anything other than castor at less than 10%. Or just try it as is and then tweak it from there of it’s not quite to your liking. Your original recipe isn’t bad at all.

 

[Alfa_Lazcares]

Hi guys thanks for your feedback so far!

@dixiedragon Now that I think about it, I think that what I look for the most on my soaps is for then to be creamy. My skin does okay with highish coconut but i think this time I would like to go for a bit of a gentler bar, thats why I lowered my coconut, I usually do 30 or so.


It seems like the consesus it to up the almond and lower the palm (2 votes each!).

I am planning on using 50% water and 50% coconut cream (the canned stuff) and just do a basic swirl, nothing fancy. And no FO since I really want to know if the cocoa butter smell will come through (at least to me since I can smell cocoa powder on soap).
I dont have too much cocoa butter to play with since its quite expensive, so probably wont be on my regular rotation of soaps, but i do want to give it a go since i have it now.


Thanks again for your coments and for any additional ideas you may have.

EDIT: So it would be:

5% Castor
10% Almond
10% Cocoa butter
20% Coconut
25% Palm
30% Olive

 

[amd]

I use cocoa butter at 5% and some people can smell it, some people can't. I can smell a light chocolatey smell in unscented bars, it's not strong and I can't smell it when lathering. When fragranced I can't smell the cocoa butter at all. Humblebee and Me had a soap a few years ago that she did high cocoa butter + cocoa powder to get the chocolate smell, she said it worked, but I'm not sure how long it lasted. I've tried a few variations of this and the chocolate scent doesn't hold for long.

 

[MKLonestar]

I do not use Almond oil at all due to allergens that so many people seem to suffer from it nowadays.

Last night I did a recipe with 12% undeodorized cocoa butter and even before adding any fragrance, I was unable to really smell the cocoa.

Let us know how your recipe turns out for you.

 

[dixiedragon]

Always difficult when we don't know what oils others have access to! My suggestions for creamy lather vs big fluffy lather are lard (though it seems you are going all veg here), castor at 5%, and a combo of sunflower, olive and rice bran. You can also boost your bubbles a bit with some sugar, which can be white sugar, brown sugar, honey, maple syrup, etc.

 

[lsg]

Here is one I came up with using the Soapmaking Recipe Builder & Calculator
30% Palm Oil
20% Olive Oil
25% Coconut Oil
15% Cocoa Butter
8% Castor Oil
2% Beeswax

Palm can be replaced with lard and you can delete the beeswax and add that 2% to the palm. Make sure to run it through a lye calculator.

 

[Alfa_Lazcares]

@amd I’ve made a few batches with cocoa powder and I can still smell it after a few months, but I am the only one ha!

@MKLonestar Will do!

@dixiedragon, oh, sorry! But besides those oils I only have avocado and soy. I’m almost out of lard but I do want this one to be veggie anyway. Never seen rice bran, but I’ll look for it next time I shop for oils haha. For the bubbles i am using coconut cream and that stuff already has sugar in it.

@lsg hi! I may give that one a go too! But without the beeswaxs cause i dont have any and i would have to order it. Thanks!

 

[Alfa_Lazcares]

Hi! I made both recipes already... and i can totaly smell the chocolate on both, but specially the one with 15%. I havent tried them yet since they are quite young still, one being less than a week old now, but really liking the chocolaty smell on them.