Follow-Up on Illipe Butter/Cocoa Butter Comparison Soaps

Way back in April, I did an experiment to see how Illipe Butter and Cocoa Butter worked in soap. I made two identical batches, except one used Illipe Butter and the other Cocoa Butter. Click here to read the original post.

Just after being unmolded: Illipe Nut Butter soap on the left, Cocoa Butter soap on the right.

Now that the soap has had ample time to cure, I want to go back to the bars and see how they look, feel, and lather.

In appearance, both bars are white, which is good to know. I used regular Cocoa Butter in this comparison, and it did not warm up the color of the bar. The bars seem equally hard, as expected. I did not notice any difference in scent; both were scented with Wild Mint & Ivy Fragrance Oil. The fragrance was almost undetectable in the bars before I wet them, but as I lathered up the soap, the scent came out. I could not catch any chocolate notes from the Cocoa Butter bar.

The Cocoa Butter bar immediately made a bubbly lather. The bar is quite hard. There is plenty of slip and glide in this soap lather, and bubbles were plentiful. I like that my hands do not feel dried out after washing. This bar seems to have some nice conditioning properties.

I had to work harder to get the Illipe Butter bar to lather up, but once it did, the dense, creamy lather was super! There was not as much glide as the Cocoa Butter bar, and my hands felt more squeaky clean after using the Illipe Butter bar.

Illipe Butter Soap

Cocoa Butter Soap

Conclusions:

Both Illipe Butter and Cocoa Butter will produce a hard, white bar with good lather. Cocoa Butter seems more conditioning, while Illipe Butter seems more cleansing.

Have you ever made a comparison like this? If so, what did you learn?