Formula · Butter-led
Shea and Cocoa Luxury Bar
Thirty-five percent butter by weight, eight percent superfat, and a lather that feels like hand cream. It is the most expensive bar in this library and the one people ask for by name.
RRecipe card
| Oil | Share | SAP |
|---|---|---|
| Olive Oil | 3 % | 0.134 |
| Coconut Oil (76 °F) | 22 % | 0.183 |
| Shea Butter | 2 % | 0.128 |
| Cocoa Butter | 15 % | 0.137 |
| Palm Oil | 8 % | 0.141 |
| Castor Oil | 5 % | 0.129 |
| Oil bill | 1 % | 132.8 |
| NaOH to weigh | 134.1 g | NaOH @ 99 % |
|---|---|---|
| Water to weigh | 310 g | 2.33 : 1 |
| Superfat | 8 % | Lye concentration 30 % |
| Yield | 9 × 160.5 g | Cure 8 weeks |
Reference bands follow the usual cold-process targets; the marker turns orange when a figure sits outside its band.
TTechnique notes
Where 35 % butter lands
Shea at 20 % and cocoa at 15 % push stearic and palmitic acid well up: hardness comes out near 47, creamy near 40, both comfortably inside their bands. Cleansing drops to about 16, which is the low end of the 12–22 band, and that is why this bar never feels tight even at a 22 % coconut load.
The cost is real. Conditions: butter-heavy soap accelerates trace from the first second the lye touches the oil, and it will not forgive a warm jug or a cold mould.
Why the superfat is 8 %
At 6 % this bar is good. At 8 % it stops feeling like soap and starts feeling like a lotion, which is the entire point of the recipe. The extra 2 % costs you a slightly shorter shelf life — figure on two years rather than four.
The jojoba at trace is doing something structurally different from the rest of the superfat. Jojoba is a liquid wax and only about 26 % of it saponifies, so most of what you add at trace is still jojoba in the finished bar. Twenty grams in a kilogram is enough to change the after-feel without making the bar greasy.
Fragrance and the colour shift
Vanilla, benzoin and most "warm" fragrance oils contain vanillin, which oxidises and turns the bar tan to brown over two to six weeks. There is no way to prevent it in cold process. Plan for it: either pick a fragrance without vanillin or design a two-tone pour that looks deliberate when the bottom half darkens.
Essential oils behave differently. Lavender, cedarwood and patchouli hold their colour; citrus oils fade within three months and are better in a bar you will use quickly.
Add at trace
- 8 % superfat carried by 20 g of jojoba added at trace — the jojoba largely survives saponification
- 3 % benzoin or vanilla-type fragrance; expect the bar to darken to tan
Equipment
- Digital scale to 0.1 g
- Stick blender
- Double boiler for the butters
- 1.1 kg mould, or a 1 kg wooden mould with a liner
When it goes wrong
- Trace arrives in ninety seconds and the batter is lumpy
- The lye was warmer than 38 °C or the cocoa butter had partly re-solidified. Both jugs at 35–37 °C and a fully clear oil phase prevent it.
- A crack down the middle of the loaf
- Overheating in the mould. Insulate with a towel, not a blanket, and unmould at 36 hours rather than leaving it boxed for three days.
MMix
- Melt 200 g shea and 150 g cocoa butter together over water. Cocoa butter melts at 34–36 °C and shea at about 32 °C, so a single gentle bath does both.
- Add the liquid olive, coconut, palm and castor to the melted butters and stir until the whole oil phase is clear with no flecks.
- Weigh 310 g water, then add 62.1 g NaOH. Cool the lye to 35 °C — with this much butter, a warm lye will bring you to trace before the fragrance is in.
- Bring the oils to 35–37 °C. Cocoa butter will start to set below 34 °C, so do not go cooler than that.
- Pour the lye in and stir by hand for a full two minutes. You should get a stable emulsion without the blender at all on this recipe.
- Add the 20 g jojoba and the fragrance by hand, stir 20 seconds, and pour at light trace.
CCut
- Insulate for 24 hours. This recipe gels hard and hot; a wooden mould will feel warm on the outside within an hour.
- Unmould at 36–48 hours. Cocoa butter makes a brittle loaf — if it cracks at the corners, it released too cold, not too early.
- Cut at day 4 with a wire cutter. Nine to ten bars at about 118 g. Darkening from the fragrance starts within a week.
CCure
- Eight weeks. High-butter bars are hard at four weeks and good at eight — the difference is in how the lather feels, not in the hardness.
- Store unwrapped. A bar this rich will sweat if it is sealed in plastic before it is fully cured.
What matters here
- 20 % shea + 15 % cocoa: hardness ≈ 47, creamy ≈ 40, cleansing ≈ 16.
- Both jugs at 35–37 °C. Cocoa butter sets below 34 °C and the batch seizes above 38 °C.
- 20 g of jojoba at trace mostly survives saponification and is what changes the after-feel.
- Plan for vanillin darkening: two to six weeks, unavoidable, design around it.
Questions that come up
- Can I use only shea and skip the cocoa butter?
- Yes — take the shea to 35 %, drop the cocoa butter to 0 % and leave the palm at 8 %. You lose some hardness and gain working time, because shea is far less brittle than cocoa butter and does not set in the jug.
- Why did my bars crack on top?
- The loaf got too hot in the mould. This recipe gels hard. Insulate with a single towel, leave the mould somewhere at room temperature rather than near a radiator, and unmould at 36 hours.
- Is an 8 % superfat safe for storage?
- Yes, but shorten your expectations: 18–24 months rather than the four years a low-superfat bar will keep. Store it cool, dry and unwrapped, and check for orange spots at the 12-month mark.
Next on the bench
Cold-process soap is made with sodium hydroxide: goggles, gloves and ventilation. A high-superfat bar is not a moisturiser and not a treatment — it is soap with more unsaponified oil left in it.