Teach Soap

Hello everyone,

I got a delivery of some cocoa butter this morning and it was not what I expected. I've only played around with shea butter so far, but I would really like to make some chocolate soap soon so thought I'd order some cocoa butter. Anyhoo, turns out the cocoa butter I've received is refined... I was really expecting it to smell chocolatey because whenever I've watched videos of people using it they're all "smells soo good" and mine doesn't really smell of anything. I wrote to the person who supplied me and he said it's refined. When I looked at the product description it says it was 100% organic but I'm unsure if it being refined means it's not organic? IDK. Anyway, does anyone know if refined cocoa butter is still as good? I'm really looking forward to making this soap but don't want to waste my time or oils if it's not going to turn out well.

Any help or pointers would be great!

Lara

Refined cocoa butter can be used the same as unrefined. As you discovered, it doesn't have the cocoa smell and it is probably a lighter color than unrefined. It's nice in soap and lotion bars.

Was your shea butter refined? Unrefined shea is very yellow.

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

i think its a personal choice. I only use refined shea to me its easier to use but buy both refined and unrefined for cocoa because i do love the natural smell of the cocoa but sometimes in lotions and lip butters it might interfer with the scent I put in in that case I use refined. Both have same great qualities.

Thanks I'm glad to know it'll still do the same thing. I only bought 100g as well, so that's good. But still, I'm annoyed about it! The picture looks completely different to what I received and I'm still not sure about this organic/refined thing. Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with being organic, but I still feel like I've been tricked!

My shea butter was unrefined I think, as it was quite yellow.

Yeah I was really looking forward to the natural smell of cocoa! I understand what you mean about the smell interfering with fragrances, but this time I really wanted the natural smell I feel so let down haha.

You need raw cocoa butter if you want any scent to remain. Organic can be refined and still be organic.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

You also can look at non-deodorized versus deodorized. The non-d retains much more of the chocolate smell, but I always used a fragrance oil as well if I was making chocolate soap.

Anita

I buy food grade cocoa butter from a wholesale chocolate supply place. It has a much higher fat content that cosmetic grade cocoa butter, so it is richer and creamier in my recipes.
And boy, does it smell like chocolate!

Yes, you do have to overcome the scent if you are using it in scented lotion bars or something, but EOs like lavender take over just fine