For Mother’s Day this year, I wanted to formulate a soap
that contained a generous amount of cocoa butter. I also thought it would be
nice to try infusing the oils with lavender buds and lemon zest. Although the resulting
infused oil was very fragrant, I did I ended up adding a small amount of fragrance
just to make sure it did retain a lavender/herb/citrus scent after cure:
I also added rich cream at trace. It’s not completely done
curing yet, but I did sneak a small piece to try and I am loving it. This 25% cocoa
butter recipe produces a very hard bar with a rich, creamy, fluffy lather.
Note: I used my divider mold for this soap, because I wasn’t sure if the
high % of cocoa butter would make the soap crumbly or hard to cut.
Enjoy!
So much good and lovely things in one soap :) I never thought of using that much cocoa butter, but it sounds luxurious. Do you think that the soaps are much harder than with your normal recipe? One soap that I made had much cocoa and shea butter and I remember that it was soft for several months, even it contained coconut oil. Still everybody loved it :)
ReplyDeleteHi Markia, yes, the cocoa butter definitely made these bars much firmer. I didn't use any sodium lactate in this batch, but these bars were just as firm, if not firmer, than any of my bars with SL. I wonder why yours stayed soft? Maybe it was due to the % of hard to soft oils?
DeleteReally gorgeous! I like luxurious look of this soap provided by quality of ingredients and simplicity of design. Thanks for sharing idea and recipe!
ReplyDeleteLove the simple and rich look of this soap, Christine! :)
ReplyDeleteLovander and lemon is a lovely combination, I have already tried it and I adored it!
Thanks for sharing your recipe!
I am sure every mother will love this soap!
It looks very creamy! Oh how I would like to smell the infused oil! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you Gordana, Natalia and Kalla! The lavender/lemon is such a nice combo...I was tempted to keep the infused oil for cooking, but nah! ;)
DeleteThe cocoa butter must be fantastic. What a nice idea for a Mother's day gift, although shouldn't your kids be making it for you then? ;)
ReplyDeleteOh, how I wish! I will just keep a bar instead...Happy Mother's Day to me! :D
DeleteGorgeous soap, Cee Gee, and the recipe sounds fantastic! Thanks for sharing it. Lavender and lemon is one of my favorite scent combinations.
ReplyDeleteReally nice Cee! Thanks for sharing the recipe too! :) I recently tried cocoa butter in my soap again and had forgotten how hard the soap can get. I almost had a hard time cutting it! Then I realised...well this will be perfect for my non-gelled soap :)
ReplyDeleteThat's a very good point Roxana...it does firm up those non-gelled soaps quite nicely!
DeleteI've been using butters up to 15% and it makes such a luxury soap. I'd love to try this more buttery soap. It is beautiful,simply designed and so lux!
ReplyDeleteWhen is mothers' day? We celebrate 8.March, international day of women (remember Klara Zetkin) and it's usually dedicated to mothers,grannies,etc. Red carnations are traditional symbol for that day.
That's interesting Maja, I didn't realize that! Our Mother's Day is always the second Sunday in May (this year it's May 12). Thanks for the compliment on the soap too!
DeleteI've never used cocoa butter at such a high percentage--it sounds decadent! I'll have to give that a try sometime. And the lemon/lavender combo must smell wonderful!
ReplyDeleteIt is decadent! Best soap recipe yet. I won't go back to my usual recipe. Lathers wonderfully!
DeleteThanks DH! It really is a lovely soap, one of my favorites so far :)
ReplyDeleteI just am in love with how simple yet full of buttery goodness this bar is...I may just get bold enough to try something like this soon. Always been a titch afraid of it being too hard and I don't have a divider type mold...hmmmm...perhaps tis time to get one :P
ReplyDeleteYes, I haven't tried this in loaf form, so I have no idea if it would get too hard to cut quickly, I'd love to hear if anyone has experience with this!
DeleteThis recipe looks amazing and I can't wait to try it. I am new to CP soap making. I have been reading and researching for the past year and just made my first two loaves in the past week. This may be a dumb question, but if the cream is added at trace then would it still saponify? Thanks for posting your recipe!
ReplyDeleteHi Leah, congratulations on your first 2 batches, how exciting!
DeleteThe reason for adding the cream at trace is the thought that most of the lye has already reacted with the oils by the time you hit trace, so adding it at trace will keep the cream more intact. However, there is no way to judge how much free lye is left at trace and whether or not it has completely reacted with the cream is hard to judge.
I definitely notice a difference in softness of the soap when I have added cream at trace, quite often I have to leave it in the mold an extra day (with the amount of cocoa butter in this recipe though, it didn’t need the extra time in the mold).
I’m sorry I couldn’t provide a more solid answer, but I hope this helps somewhat!
I am new at soap making. Is "infused rice bran oil" something we buy in the store or can this be made at home? if we can make it at home, how do I do that?
ReplyDeleteThank you..
Amazon is the only place I've found it.
DeleteCan you replace it with anything?
DeleteWhat's the 60 grams of cream you added?
ReplyDeleteI did not use the cream and it came out perfect
ReplyDeleteI think the Avacodo oil adds just enough fat to it that it comes out together not crumbly. Try not to alter or double that's where soap making goes wrong. Plus it takes a little longer than other soaps to get a trace. I use a hand electric emulsion blender. It's great for soaps.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this recipe, I was wondering how much did you consider for superfat? I heard using cocoa butter more than 15% can cause a crumbly bar, did you have this problem? and also you considered 30% coconut oil, the soap wasn't too drying?
ReplyDeletesorry for asking a lot of questions and again thanks a lot
Hi, I love your web site; how do I remove the large ad (from Naturelle) that's blocking your Blog ?
ReplyDelete