Cocoa Butter
Saponification values, fatty acid makeup, and what this oil does in a bar of soap.
Use Cocoa Butter in a recipe → Added at 0%, you set the amount
Saponification values
Grams of lye needed to saponify one gram of cocoa butter. Multiply by your oil weight, then apply your superfat.
- NaOH (bar soap)
- 0.138
- KOH (liquid soap)
- 0.194
- Iodine
- 37
- INS
- 157
INCI: Theobroma Cacao (Cocoa) Seed ButterSaponified name (for labels): Sodium Cocoa Butterate
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Fatty acid profile
| Fatty acid | Percentage |
|---|---|
| Oleic | 35% |
| Stearic | 33% |
| Palmitic | 28% |
| Linoleic | 3% |
Soap qualities at 100%
What a bar made entirely of cocoa butter would score. Almost nobody soaps a single oil at 100% - this is here so you can see what the oil contributes to a blend. The shaded band is the range most makers aim for in a finished recipe.
What that means in a recipe
Contributes a lot of hardness (61), so it firms a bar up and helps it unmould cleanly and last in the dish.
Derived from the numbers above rather than written by hand, so it stays in step with the data. Tendencies, not guarantees - your oils, water, and technique all move the result.
Oils that behave similarly
Closest matches by fatty acid makeup - the usual starting point when you have run out of cocoa butter and need a substitute. Check the lye maths again after swapping: SAP values differ even between oils that behave alike.
- Tallow, BeefSAP 0.143 NaOH
- Tallow, GoatSAP 0.137 NaOH
- Mowrah ButterSAP 0.138 NaOH
- Tallow, DeerSAP 0.138 NaOH
- Illipe ButterSAP 0.132 NaOH
Recipes using cocoa butter
- Steeped Green 30%Brew strong green tea and use it as the lye liquid, cooled. Nearly a third cocoa butter makes a hard, high-stearic bar that traces fast - have the mould lined before you blend.
- Coffee & Cocoa 20%Dark, firm, and lightly exfoliating. Cocoa butter gives hardness; coffee handles kitchen smells.
- Cocoa Butter & Vanilla 20%Rich and hard, with the dense lather cocoa butter is prized for.
- Vanilla Hearth 17%Cocoa butter and castor give a dense, creamy, big-bubbled lather. Built for vanilla and cinnamon leaf at roughly 3% of oil weight. Note the castor is unusually high - expect a slightly tacky bar until it is fully cured.
- Shea & Cocoa Butter Bar 10%A richer everyday bar. The butters add hardness and a dense, creamy lather without much cleansing punch.
Open the calculator to load any of these from the recipe library.
Use Cocoa Butter in a recipe → Added at 0% - you set the amount