Whipped Cocoa Butter and Aloe?

[kaelynn]

I was very interested in a thread that SoapmakerMan posted about whipping shea butter and aloe vera gel together to create whipped shealoe butter and I'm dying to give it a try but I have to wait for my order of shea butter to arrive before I can.

I did manage to pick up 4oz of cocoa butter at the local health food store (don't ask how much I paid but I was crazy to try out something!!) and I found 100% aloe vera gel at Walmart. Has anyone tried whipping the cocoa butter and aloe vera gel together in the same fashion as the shea/aloe combo?

I realize that cocoa butter is a much harder butter, but I was thinking of adding a bit of jojoba oil to the melted cocoa butter before adding in the aloe vera gel in an effort to soften it up a bit.

Any comments or suggestions?

 

[Tabitha]

Is your cocoa butter 100%? Quite often you will p/u a jar that says cocoa butter just to find it is the 9tyh or 10th ingredient on the list.

I whipped cocoa butter once. I used 1 part oil & 3 parts cocoa butter & it was hard as a rock. I couldn't chissel it out of the jar w/ a steak knife!

If I were to try it again I think I would try 2 parts oil & 2 parts cocoa & it may *still* be too hard. The good thing about it though, is if it is too hard or too soft you can always melt it back down & adjust the content.

 

[kaelynn]

It's 100% cocoa butter and hard as a rock! I think it's pretty funny that they sell it as a moisturizer in that form since I could barely dig any out with my fingernail!

I just might have to give this a try with equal amounts of cocoa butter, jojoba oil and aloe vera gel.

Just wondering though, if it's too hard could I still remelt it if I've mixed in the aloe vera gel? Would that damage the aloe?

Thanks!

 

[Tabitha]

I don't know what aloe vera would do in the microwave :? .

 

[Soapmaker Man]

I remelted in my Presto Pot some shealoe I made up and added a bit of coco butter, unrefined, to stiffen it up. I added 20% of the weight of the shealoe butter I made. It heated very well on low, like 170 degrees, stirring all the time with a spoonula. When is cooled, like the next morning, too hard! I think I'll remelt once more, third time, and add a bit more shea to it. As long as you heat it slow and constantly stir, it seems to do very well. i let cool slowly by whipping in my kitchen aide stand mixer until just hard enough to pour easily into a glad plastic disposable container. HTH.

Paul

 

[kaelynn]

Oh, that's good to know, Paul! Thank you!

Ok, I think I'll give this a try tomorrow using equal amounts of cocoa butter and jojoba oil (probably 2-2.5oz of each to make the math easier)and then using your 70/30 ratio of butter/oil to aloe vera.

I think I'll do it on the stove using a glass cup in a pot of water rather than using the microwave just to keep things slow and easy.

I'll report back on how it goes...wish me luck!

 

[Soapmaker Man]

Good luck! :wink: Low and slow.....

Paul

 

[kaelynn]

Well, it worked out quite well!

I melted on the stove in a glass bowl set in a pan of water at low temp. I was quite surprised how quickly the cocoa butter melted, but I did chop it up quite fine before starting. As soon as the cocoa butter was melted, I added the jojoba oil and the aloe vera gel and stirred it up. The aloe vera gel didn't seem to want to melt, even after another 10 minutes or so of heating and stirring. Finally I just decided to go ahead and whip it and see what happened.

Took about 15 minutes of whipping total with my hand mixer. I whipped it without any cooling until the bowl was no longer hot and then I set it in a bowl of ice and kept whipping. I was surprised to see no change for the longest time and then it went from clear yellow liquid to solid whipped butter in about 20 seconds flat!

The final product reminds me of hard margarine...quite solid in the jar, but melts immediately on skin contact and soaks in within a minute leaving no greasies. Not bad!

I'm going to keep an eye on it for the next few weeks (if I don't use it all up first! lol!) and see if it separates or gets harder or softer, etc.

Thanks for everyone's help and suggestions!

 

[Tabitha]

Cool! My whipped shea is like a firm butter/margarin too.

 

[Zenobiah]

Very interesting! I like experiments.