Cocoa butter vs kokum butter in soap
Kokum behaves much like cocoa butter in soap, 59 against 61 for hardness on its own, without the chocolate smell. It is about half stearic acid, where cocoa butter splits its saturated fat between palmitic and stearic. Its fatty acids come from a single analysis made in 1939, so treat its figures as approximate. The lye differs by 1.9 %, and a swap leaves the bar below at 4.7 % superfat.
Cocoa Butter (Theobroma Oil) Kokum Butter Compare them with other oils
The published figures
| Cocoa butter | Kokum butter | |
|---|---|---|
| Saponification value, mg KOH/g | 188–198 | 187–191.7 |
| Used by the calculator, mg KOH/g | 193.0 (midpoint) | 189.4 (midpoint) |
| SAP for NaOH, g/g | 0.1376 | 0.1350 |
| Iodine value, g I₂/100 g | 33–42 | 32–40 |
| INS (SAP − IV) | 156 | 153 |
| Melting point, °C | 31–35 | — |
| Unsaponifiable matter, % | — | ≤ 1.5 |
| Name on a soap label | Sodium Cocoa Butterate | — |
Each oil alone
| Cocoa butter | Kokum butter | Usual range | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardness | 61 | 59 | 29–54 |
| Cleansing | 0 | 1 | 12–22 |
| Conditioning | 38 | 42 | 44–69 |
| Bubbly lather | 0 | 1 | 14–46 |
| Creamy lather | 61 | 57 | 16–48 |
A single oil’s hardness, cleansing and the rest are the same sums the calculator shows for a recipe, applied to that one oil. They explain what the oil brings to a blend; they do not predict how a soap of only that oil would feel.
Swapping one for the other
Gram for gram, kokum butter takes 1.9 % less lye than cocoa butter. For a kilogram of oil at a 5 % superfat, that is 130.7 g of sodium hydroxide for cocoa butter and 128.2 g for kokum butter.
In the bar below, where it is 15 % of the oils, weigh the lye for one and put in the other without recalculating, and the superfat moves:
| Lye weighed for | Oil used | Superfat |
|---|---|---|
| Cocoa butter | Kokum butter | 4.7 %barely moves |
| Kokum butter | Cocoa butter | 5.3 %barely moves |
The superfat is the share of the oils the lye leaves unsaponified, planned here at 5 %; below zero, there is more lye than the oils can take. Put the oil you actually have in the lye calculator and it works out the lye for that oil.
The same bar with either
The bar: 15 % of the one or the other, at a 5 % superfat, for 1,000 g of oils. The rest: 55 % olive oil, 25 % coconut oil, and 5 % castor oil.
| With cocoa butter | With kokum butter | Usual range | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sodium hydroxide, g | 139.9 | 139.5 | |
| Hardness | 38 | 38 | 29–54 |
| Cleansing | 17 | 17 | 12–22 |
| Conditioning | 58 | 59 | 44–69 |
| Bubbly lather | 21 | 22 | 14–46 |
| Creamy lather | 26 | 25 | 16–48 |
| Iodine value | 58 | 58 | 41–70 |
| INS | 148 | 148 | 136–165 |
| Linoleic and linolenic acid, % | 8.4 | 7.8 |
Open the bar with cocoa butter Open the bar with kokum butter
Fatty-acid profile
| Fatty acid | Cocoa butter | Kokum butter | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Myristic acid | C14:0 | 0.0 | 1.2 |
| Palmitic acid | C16:0 | 26.5 (23–30) | 5.3 |
| Stearic acid | C18:0 | 34.0 (31–37) | 52.0 |
| Oleic acid | C18:1 | 34.5 (31–38) | 41.5 |
| Linoleic acid | C18:2 | 3.2 (1.6–4.8) | 0.0 |
| α-Linolenic acid | C18:3 n-3 | 0.8 (0–1.5) | 0.0 |
| Arachidic acid | C20:0 | 0.8 (0–1.5) | 0.0 |
The figure the calculator uses for each oil, as a percentage of its fatty acids, with the published range in brackets.
Recipes with cocoa butter
- Mocha swirl bar 25 % of the oils
- Cream and honey luxury bar 23 % of the oils
- Men's cedar and orange bar 20 % of the oils
- Rice bran and avocado bar 20 % of the oils
- Vegan hard bar 20 % of the oils
- Unscented chamomile bar 17 % of the oils
Guides
Other comparisons
Where these numbers come from
Cocoa Butter (Theobroma Oil)
Mirror site hosting the USP 29-NF 24 text; values transcribed from that page. Newer USP editions may differ.
JP XVIII 'Cacao Butter' (Oleum Cacao): melting point 31-35 C; congealing point of fatty acids 45-50 C; acid value NMT 3.0; saponification value 188-195; iodine value 35-43.
Five Venezuelan hybrid cultivars: palmitic 22.9-26.1%, stearic 34.7-37.3%, oleic 36.2-39.9%, linoleic ND-1.6%; iodine value 32.5-34.1; saponification value 193.4-194.9 mg KOH/g; melting point 35-36 C.
Kokum Butter
Standard for Kokum Fat (Garcinia indica choisy): butyro-refractometer at 40 C 45.9-47.3 (or refractive index 1.4565-1.4575), saponification value 187-191.7, unsaponifiable matter not more than 1.5%, iodine value (Wijs) 32-40, acid value not more than 0.5, flash point not less than 250 C. See notes on table-reconstruction confidence.
Classical wet-chemistry fatty-acid analysis (myristic, palmitic, stearic, oleic only); reprint/digitisation hosted on Zenodo. Source of the fattyAcidsPercent field.