Shea butter vs cocoa butter in soap
Cocoa butter makes the harder bar, 61 for hardness on its own against shea’s 45: it is an even three-way split of palmitic, stearic and oleic acid, where shea is mostly stearic and oleic. Shea carries 2.4–11.6 % unsaponifiable matter, which stays in the bar as it is. Faiola finds that cocoa butter above about 15 % can make a bar crack, so a recipe that needs more hardness can split the share between the two. The lye differs by 5.5 %.
Shea Butter Cocoa Butter (Theobroma Oil) Compare them with other oils
The published figures
| Shea butter | Cocoa butter | |
|---|---|---|
| Saponification value, mg KOH/g | 179.3–190 (typical 183) | 188–198 |
| Used by the calculator, mg KOH/g | 183.0 (typical) | 193.0 (midpoint) |
| SAP for NaOH, g/g | 0.1305 | 0.1376 |
| Iodine value, g I₂/100 g | 30–75 | 33–42 |
| INS (SAP − IV) | 131 | 156 |
| Melting point, °C | 33–40.5 | 31–35 |
| Unsaponifiable matter, % | 2.4–11.6 (typical 6.2) | — |
| Name on a soap label | Sodium Shea Butterate | Sodium Cocoa Butterate |
Each oil alone
| Shea butter | Cocoa butter | Usual range | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardness | 45 | 61 | 29–54 |
| Cleansing | 0 | 0 | 12–22 |
| Conditioning | 54 | 38 | 44–69 |
| Bubbly lather | 0 | 0 | 14–46 |
| Creamy lather | 45 | 61 | 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, cocoa butter takes 5.5 % more lye than shea butter. For a kilogram of oil at a 5 % superfat, that is 123.9 g of sodium hydroxide for shea butter and 130.7 g for cocoa 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Shea butter | Cocoa butter | 5.7 %recalculate |
| Cocoa butter | Shea butter | 4.3 %recalculate |
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 shea butter | With cocoa butter | Usual range | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sodium hydroxide, g | 138.9 | 139.9 | |
| Hardness | 36 | 38 | 29–54 |
| Cleansing | 17 | 17 | 12–22 |
| Conditioning | 60 | 58 | 44–69 |
| Bubbly lather | 21 | 21 | 14–46 |
| Creamy lather | 23 | 26 | 16–48 |
| Iodine value | 61 | 58 | 41–70 |
| INS | 144 | 148 | 136–165 |
| Linoleic and linolenic acid, % | 8.7 | 8.4 |
Open the bar with shea butter Open the bar with cocoa butter
Fatty-acid profile
| Fatty acid | Shea butter | Cocoa butter | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Palmitic acid | C16:0 | 3.5 (1.9–5) | 26.5 (23–30) |
| Stearic acid | C18:0 | 41.7 (27.7–55.7) | 34.0 (31–37) |
| Oleic acid | C18:1 | 47.4 (34–60.7) | 34.5 (31–38) |
| Linoleic acid | C18:2 | 6.2 (4.4–7.9) | 3.2 (1.6–4.8) |
| α-Linolenic acid | C18:3 n-3 | 0.0 | 0.8 (0–1.5) |
| Arachidic acid | C20:0 | 0.9 (0–1.8) | 0.8 (0–1.5) |
The figure the calculator uses for each oil, as a percentage of its fatty acids, with the published range in brackets.
Recipes with shea butter
- 100 % butter bar 60 % of the oils
- African black soap homage 30 % of the oils
- Charcoal pencil line bar 30 % of the oils
- Shea and cocoa butter luxury bar 30 % of the oils
- Butter bar 25 % of the oils
- Goat milk and shea hot process bar 25 % of the oils
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
Shea Butter
Table 5 (GLC fatty-acid composition of 36 individual shea nut samples) and Results sections 3.2 (NSL/non-saponifiable lipid content, Table 2) and 3.5 (fatty-acid prose ranges) supplied the fattyAcidsPercent and unsaponifiablePercent fields.
Standard for 'Shea butter (Unrefined)': iodine value 30-75, saponification value 160-200 (used for those two fields), unsaponifiable matter not more than 19%, free fatty acids not more than 8%, refractive index 1.4620-1.4650 at 44 C. Item inserted by 2019 amendment, gazetted 2021.
Table 4: traditional wet-extracted butter (SBT) SAP 167.4 mg KOH/g, iodine 21.43 gI2/100g, melting point 33.0 C; solvent-extracted butter (SBS) SAP 202.9 mg KOH/g, iodine 13.19 gI2/100g, melting point 40.5 C. Nigerian samples. Melting-point figures used for the field; its iodine values were treated as an outlier and not used (see notes).
Ivory Coast beige/yellow shea butter: iodine 52.64/53.06 gI2/100g (corroborates the FSSAI-sourced field). Its unsaponifiable matter (17.61%/17.27%) and fatty acids (palmitic 16.42%/26.36%, stearic 32.39%/36.36%, oleic 38.12%/29.09%, linoleic 9.72%/5.92%, arachidic 1.84%/1.59%) were NOT used - inconsistent with Akihisa et al.'s much larger 36-sample dataset, recorded here only for transparency.
Internet Archive capture (3 August 2025) of the FAO file. Table 2: relative density (20 C) 0.91-0.98, density (40 C) 0.89-0.93, saponification value 160-195 mg KOH/g fat, iodine value 30-75, unsaponifiable matter 1-19 % m/m, refractive index at 44 C 1.4620-1.4650, melting point 35-40 C. Table 3: lauric <1, myristic <0.7, palmitic 2-10, palmitoleic <0.3, stearic 25-50, oleic 32-62, linoleic 1-11, linolenic <1, C20:0 <3.5 %. The standard says its limits are broad because they cover shea from all production areas. Regulatory limits, recorded in notes rather than as the band.
Crude Ghanaian shea fat: saponification value 190.0, iodine value 64.2, unsaponifiable 9.0 %, palmitic 4.8, stearic 45.9 %. Sets the maximum.
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.