Teach Soap

I've made several batches of soap with cocoa butter and I'm in love! I just love the stuff - the feel, the smell. Yummm. I made a lotion bar with 75% cocoa butter and 25% coconut oil just to help with the melting and smoothing it on, but I thought it felt too oily. I also really want to try a lip balm. Does anyone else love cocoa butter? What do you use it in?

I use it in lip balm and lotion bars. Though I get the deodorized version, I can't stand the smell! YUCK!

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

I think I'm an outlier here, most folks seem to love the smell. I also dislike the smell of beeswax. Both have a sweetness that makes me want to gag. Which is silly because I love baking sweets (not to mention eating them *pats ginormous belly*). Just something about the smell of those two things gets to me.

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

I have a Vanilla Body Cream that uses Cocoa Butter or Shea Butter that is wonderful.. Or I love it anyways.

2 TBL of Butter
2 TBL of Virgin Coconut Oil
1 Tsp of Vanilla absolute (i use vanilla almond F.O.)

I also added 1 teaspoon of cornstartch.

Donna

I'm the opposite. I can't stand cocoa butter. It doesn't absorb into the skin, it leaves an oil film for hours. Prefer shea butter, or, the best of all in my opinion, kpnangan butter for its silky after-application effect.

I have been wanting to try that butter. Where do you get yours and do you just use straight? Donna

I in the cocoa butter lovers group love it so much! tried to use it as base butter in soap hoping that it will save it's scent but got disappointed. Now I am looking for dry flo or corn starch to try out the lotion/body butter side of it. But in Ukraine corn starch is somehow hard to find.

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I am Lora

I made Soap Queen's hard lotion with cocoa butter, beeswax and Olive Oil. Yes it does look a bit oily at first but in the heat, the sticks were soo soft. Now I put them in fridg and they still have some oil but give them a chance to soak in. I also used calendula extract in mine. Lush stuff. When I worked in medical I had cracked dry hands all the time. In the winter they would crack and bleed. Now I have this wonderful hard bar lotion. Love the fragrant smell.

I had to join after reading this thread!

Back in August I made the switch to plain coconut oil for body lotion. I've been half considering making soaps and lotions for awhile - I'm always fascinated by them at fairs and think "I can do this!" Plus I'd like to get some chemicals out of my system.

So I'm trying the coconut oil, but not completely thrilled by it. I won't put it on my face during the day - too greasy IMO. Same with my hands, only at night. At a fair last week I tried some shea butter. I loved how it felt and smelled but still felt it was too greasy on my hands.

I would love to try cocoa butter. I had actually read that it was better for you. I saw some at a local Whole Foods and it felt and smelled wonderful, but I didn't have my reading glasses with me and I couldn't read the fine print to see if it was pure or not. (wow do they make print small on small jars these days!). So I'm kind of surprised to see people say they feel cocoa butter is greasy! I'm going to go back to Whole Foods to read that jar. I found another health food store locally and they only had one cocoa butter and it had a lot of stuff in it, plus no tester whereas all their sheas had testers.

I was hoping to switch to this, and if this didn't work then to mix it with something else that would make it less greasy and still moisturizing.

I was also hoping to keep my lotion simple - 1-2 butters and maybe an EO. If the pure cocoa butter worked I'd be happy with that. I'm a little dismayed to read of preservatives and such too in lotions, but in reading some other threads it seems my idea is possible?

So glad to be here! Any comments would be welcome. Thanks!

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Genny

Hi Genny - thanks so much! No offense taken, between biking and having cats I often have cuts so I certainly don't want more bad things entering my bloodstream. I had no idea about the water causing that.

I didn't mind the smell of the shea that I tried - it was just too greasy on my hands.

The cocoa butter I tried in Whole Foods felt great, not greasy at all, but I suspect there were other things mixed in. I have my readers with me and will try to stop by there tonight.

Thanks for the links, I will be sure to check them out!

I am new to this site and making soap. I want to try to make a body wash using cocoa butter, coconut oil . I was thinking I might try a recipe I seen on youtube by making liquid soap or body wash by using Dr. Bronner's no scent and adding cocoa butter to that. If anyone has a different idea please help. I want to save money and I want to know what is going in the products my family uses. Thanks.

LOVE the smell of cocoa butter. I never buy the deodorized.

Here's the lipbalm recipe I use:
https://www.thesage.com/recipes/recipe- ... lay/id/200
60 grams of Beeswax
75 grams Shea Butter, Refined
45 grams White Cocoa Butter
120 grams Avocado Oil

I use Prime Pressed cocoa butter, and if I make an unscented batch, it has a faint but delightful honey/chocolate scent.