When to add shea & cocoa butter

[kommon_sense]

I'm planning on making my first batch of shea/cocoa butter soap. However I'm not sure of when to add them?

I have a brick of shea butter, and chunks of unrefined cocoa butter.

Do they get added at the start of the process with the other oils (coconut/palm/etc.) and melted with them? Do they get added at trace?

Does the cocoa butter need to be tempered? Can the unrefined chunk be grated & mixed in at trace since mixture temp should be about the temp you would want to temper the cocoa butter at?

If I temper the whole batch of cocoa butter seperately would I just need to warm it up for use in future batches?

Any info is appreciated.

 

[Lindy]

Melt them down with the rest of your oils. Because its soap you don't need to worry about tempering the way you do with lotions & creams...

 

[topcat]

Yes, Lindy is right - that is what I do too.

Tanya

 

[jennikate]

I third that I melt all hard oils together and than add liq oils I see no point to waiting till trace lye monster chomps through them any way.

 

[kommon_sense]

Thanks for the feedback! I actually ended up learning how to temper it as I made a batch of body butter for my g/f today. She seems excited about it. I went the alton brown method for tempering it. Just placed a bowl on a heating pad.

I'll be building a nicer soap mold in the next few days and we will see how this batch of shea/cocoa butter soap goes

 

[honor435]

i just melt all oils in crock(cp or hp) and dont add any at trace, heard it doesnt do anything? I use cocoa and shea, it is awesome, although I only use a3 ounces of each to a 2 lb batch, otherwise the bubbles goes way down, i do always use castor too. have fun.

 

[kommon_sense]

hmm.. Thanks for mentioning the castor. I just found it locally yesterday. I'm going to have to play with the recipe a bit to get the castor in there.

 

[topcat]

I find that adding even only 2 or 3% castor boosts the fluffy lather and moisturising feel, so working that amount into your recipe will be easy peasy! Have fun with it

Tanya