Raw Cocoa butter

Hello all!

I purchased some raw cocoa butter around Christmas for use in lotion bars, whipped body butter, and other B&B products. It worked really well, but the smell was an overpowering and sickly sweet burnt chocolate smell and I couldn't stand to use what I made.

I recently started making CP soap. In my experience and from what I read, most smells do not survive saponification. I tried an experiment out of curiosity of 360 grams of the raw cocoa butter (all I had left) and 40 grams of castor oil. After I added the lye water, the "batter" started to smell like a tootsie roll.

The soap is cut and a few days into cure. Still smells like a tootsie roll, but I think the smell is fading (might be wishful thinking). Personally, I don't like the smell, but I'm thinking of taking the soap around to a few people and see if they like the smell.

I'm thinking of being patient and letting half of the soaps continue their cure and rebatching the other half. Any suggestions on what scent would mask or even pair with the cocoa butter? Anyone else have a similar experience?

Received a small package of naturally refined cocoa butter in the mail yesterday. Already happier with the smell

Maybe add a fragrance oil that would compliment the cocoa smell. Some that come to mind are coffee or peppermint, any good chocolate fragrance oil should mask the tootsie roll scent. My thought is to go to Brambleberry or Wholesale Supplies Plus and scan their fragrance oil descriptions. You should be able to choose one that would compliment or mask the cocoa butter scent.

I never thought of coffee. That sounds like a great idea! My one friend loves the combination of chocolate and orange, so I was thinking of adding a sweet orange EO I have, but I've read that citrus scents are fleeting. A coffee fragrance oil might be the prefect solution!

You could add a little litsea cubeba with the sweet orange along with a little clay to anchor the scent. You could also use 10 fold orange, people say the scent of that lasts.

I'll have to look into that. That's interesting that clay anchors a scent, I never heard that, but I'm still very new to this. Do clays anchor scents in general or just citrus? I'm actually learning more from this impetuous cocoa butter experiment than I have from some of my previous batches

I think clay will help to anchor any scent, it also contributes silkiness, slip and absorbency to soap. Many shaving soaps contain clay. I like to use colored clays for muted shades.

Add a vanilla scent or anything that comments a chocolate. The coffee one is great too and you can use coffee grounds as an exfoliant.


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Interesting. I use raw cocoa butter in my body butter. I add essential and fragrance oils. Never had a problem, but I add other oils as well. That cuts down on cocoa butter being overpowering. It's a must for me. Though I'm new to CP soap. I add cocoa butter to all my soaps. Never had a problem with smell. I've also made an unsecented soap with it and you can't smell the cocoa butter. Could it be you're using too much? I only use raw cocoa butter, not refined. I grew up in a household where my grandmother used cocoa butter on me like lotion. Maybe I'm immuned to the smell.:shock:

I use the unrefined cocoa butter too. I love the smell. I also use unrefined Shea butter with good results. Sometimes I add them both.


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I ended up changing to Kokum butter in my solid lotions and lotion bars. The fragrances just would not stay true with the un-refined coco butter. My customers kept complaining that they were losing their fragrance. They were not losing it the coco butter was overpowering it