Cocoa butter is a useful ingredient for vegans (those who prefer no animal products including beeswax) since cocoa butter is a serviceable hardener, thickener and counterbalance to stickier ingredients like shea butter. An additional contribution of cocoa butter is that no solvents are involved in its manufacture; it is a human food-grade, edible ingredient. The edible aspect is appealing to those who desire wholesome, nurturing ingredients in homemade potions, creams, and healing balms. Cocoa butter is widely available, ships well, is reasonably priced and has a shelf life of two to five years.
The high stearic composition allows cocoa butter to increase the hardness in handmade soaps and healing balms. In a pinch, I have substituted it for bees ax with good results. It can also be used as base oil in soapmaking. When used this way, it is best combined with other oils, such as coconut oil, to produce a lather. The addition of tropical oils—coconut, palm or almond oil—also helps create a looser healing balm or salve that melts faster.
A hard soap, containing large concentrations of cocoa butter lasts for a long time in the bath. Cocoa butter-enriched soap will also hold intricate patterns of elaborate molds.
One of my favorite ways to use cocoa butter is simply to hold a small chunk of the butter in my hand as I run hot water in the bathtub. The cocoa butter melts and acts as a skin softener in the bath. After the bath, particularly during winter, I find cocoa butter useful on rough skin areas. I apply it nightly to my heels after a bath and then promptly put on cotton socks for an evening of foot softening. This also works well on calloused hands.
Black Cocoa Butter
Black cocoa butter is one of my newest obsessions. Most of you are probably familiar with the eggshell-colored cocoa butter that has been widely available for quite a while. Most of the ordinary cocoa butter that comes from Africa is processed before the seeds are allowed to germinate. With black cocoa butter, the cacao pods are germinated first, which produces a deep, espresso-colored butter that smells like roasted cocoa. As body butter, it truly lives up to the botanical name Theobroma cacao—“food of the gods.”
