oils to butter?

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Saipan

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So, are butters, such as Argan, Apricot, Mango just whipped oils?
 
Mango butter is a natural product just like cocoa butter and shea butter. It's the fat extracted from the seed and it's normal texture is a solid. You could whip air into it, but that's not how it comes in nature.

Argan "butter" and all the other "butters" that are made from otherwise liquid fats are more-or-less synthetic products. These fats are hydrogenated to make them solid or they are mixed with other hydrogenated fats (aka shortening) to make a solid product. I suppose they're useful if you want to make a body butter or other solid B&B product. Again, you can whip air into these "butters" but that's not how they are normally sold as a raw ingredient. Not sure how much value they have if used in soap.
 
I just bought some Argan butter hand cream, and was really wondering if they just whipped Argan Oil. It also has Shea Butter in it.
 
I think what DeeAnna is saying is that 'butters' like the argan butter in your hand cream are mostly likely a combination of the actual oil (argan oil in this case) and another fat that's solid at room temperature, usually listed on the ingredients as hydrogenated vegetable oil. For example, New Directions Aromatics has argan butter for sale. Here's what the site has to say about it:

Argan oil is exceptionally rich in natural tocopherols (Vitamin E), rich in phenols and phenolic acid, carotenes, squalene, essential fatty acids, unsaturated fatty acids and Vitamins A, B1, B2, and B6. Argan butter is made with this nutrient rich oil combined with a hydrogenated vegetable oil base to form a soft solid butter with excellent spreadability.

The term 'whipped' means to have air incorporated, usually with the intent of making the material you're whipping lighter and fluffier. That is not the process used to make the more-or-less synthetic butters like argan butter.
 
Thanks for clarifying, Kittish. Well said.

If you took 100% pure argan oil, which is a liquid at room temperature, you could never whip it enough to turn it into a solid "butter" form.
 
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