How Much Cocoa Butter

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Thanks for the report, MissE, and look forward to hearing your opinions on it after it cures!
 
I thought Howie Roll is a girl. At least the way he/she descdibe things…
anyway, this is a great thread, and now I have to make more experiment soap. ;)
 
Yes, I am a girl but I can see why there is confusion! I picked my user name based on the name my husband and I use for our travel blog (we often say 'that's how we roll'), but would probably do things differently if I had to do it over again. :) To help alleviate confusion, I've added my name as a signature but either way, it's no biggie to me!
 
I'd be VERY interested to see how this turns out too. MissE, we are eagerly awaiting the results, but don't rush the cure just because we're impatient... ^_~
 
'that's how we roll'
Smack Laugh.gif
 
cherrycoke216, you so much more perceptive than I am! Will be good to be able to give HowieRoll the right pronoun from now on :)

Arimara, bathgeek, will do! :)
 
Happy to report that I've made soap based on HowieRoll's Recipe at #11!


What I did different:

I didn't have avocado oil at hand and didn't want to fuss since the object of my test batch was to figure out the scent without an fo. To enhance the scent, I added the avocado oil amount to the cocoa butter (30%). If my test batch falls too short in terms of performance, I will be willing to add back the avocado oil, of course). Also, following his advice at #19, I dropped my olive oil (40%) down and upped my coconut oil (25%); the courage to do that high coconut oil amount came from Zany_in_Co's advice at #35. I left my castor oil (5%) amount alone.

What I added:

I decided to divide my batch into three: I added cocoa powder to one, cocoa powder and finely ground coffee to the other, and left the last one without any additives.

What I'll do differently next time:

I stayed with my 33% lye solution, just because in my own experience I am always rushing against soap thickening/tracing on me and I rather hoped that going by HowerRoll's notes about the runny consistency of his recipe, it would just buy me a little more time with mixing in my additives. Big mistake. My barter was running everywhere and I just couldn't get it to trace! At this point I was praying for even a false trace so I could sb it thoroughly and at least have everything suspended without the oils separating. Anyway, it finally did show signs of a trace and I triumphantly poured them. Phew! If anyone else is interested in trying this, please do go with the 40%, and you are welcome!

The Result:

I am yet to test this soap in the shower to observe how it lathers and so on, but as per the scent fresh out of the mold, I'm a little disappointed that I didn't quite get the chocolatey smell I wanted. The smell was more markedly that of cocoa. I used raw cocoa butter, by the way. But if I must pick one, I'd say the scent came through best in the cocoa powder-coffee soap. The one with only cocoa powder barely had the cocoa scent. And the one without any additives just had no discernible cocoa/chocolate scent.

#soaptestdone! :)

I'm curious about how these soaps are doing.... :angel:
 
Hi Millie, thanks for the reminder to post an update. At a little over four weeks, I would say the soap turned out great. The lather is a bit dense but abundant. I love the way it leaves my skin feeling really soft, so much so I think I'm going to use butters a lot more in my recipes. The scent didn't turn out so great, but overall I will definitely return to this recipe!
 

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