I have a soap recipe that calls for avocado butter. I have all the ingredients except that. Is there any other butter I can substitute for avocado butter? I have cocoa and shea on hand.
Avocado butter is not a real butter like mango or shea. It's made by mixing avocado oil with a solid fat like hydrogenated vegetable oil. For example, read the INCI for Brambleberry's avo butter: https://www.brambleberry.com/avocado-butter-solid-p3207.aspx
If you want to sub a fat that has a similar fatty acid profile as well as a similar sap value, then I'd use plain avocado oil if you have it based on my notes about the fatty acid profile and sap value of avo butter. Otherwise of the two butters you have on hand, the fatty acid profile of shea is closer to avo butter compared with cocoa butter.
You may well know this next piece of advice, but just in case others reading this thread do not know --
Be sure to re-run your revised recipe through a soap calculator to get the correct amount of NaOH for the changes you've made. Any time you change the kind of fat or weight of fat, it's very important to recalculate the NaOH.