I’ve had many customers and prospective customers ask if my products are “all natural.” My response is, “As natural as I can make them!” There is no legal definition for “natural,” even though most of us would believe that naturally occurring without human intervention would be a decent interpretation. I do prefer my ingredients to be virgin, organic, unrefined, except that there are reasons for me to use a refined and deodorized shea butter. The big reason for that is that I don’t like the odor of unrefined shea butter. 😀
I do, however, LOVE the aroma of unrefined, organic cocoa butter! It’s so chocolate-y! Which is just fine if you want your product to smell like chocolate, right? However, if your product is a body butter with lavender essential oil, that chocolate will definitely affect the finished product. BUT, the delicious aroma of organic, unrefined cocoa butter, with all it’s chocolate-y goodness does not seem to survive the 4-6 week cure of cold process soap. So most of my soaps get that wonderful cocoa butter in the formula!
OK, gotta go –– I need to go sniff some cocoa butter!