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hello,I like to create body butters and with shea butter and cocoa butter along with other natural oils. I notice that some of my butter get little round white hard dots in the product. I did a little research online and learned that this was called crystallization of the shea butter. How can I avoid this from happening. I've never experienced this when I purchase commercial products.
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Methods of handling recrystallisation of these things are well known in the food industry (Especially that bit dealing with chocolate) and will involve from what I can remember tempering and slow cooling. Companies like AAK http://www.aak.com/en/AAK-Academy/ also have many grades of shea butter and cocoa butter that are refined to give different performance characteristics. It might be worth having a chat to the distributor of your materials if you think they might have background that would cover this.
The other thing that may help is adding in other vegetable oils or soft fats to help keep the crystals from forming
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Try lecithin, glyceryl stearate or polyglyceryl oleate or another polyglycerol, if you have it. I start low 0.5-1%. Also adding solubilizers such as Finsolve TN or IPM can really help too. Stearic acid is usually the culprit but not always. Insolubility (or not fully solubilized ) stearic acid in the mix will eventually precipitate out into larger crystals.
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Thank you so much for your responses!Duncan - thank you for the link.. That company has great products. Can you recommend a similar company within the US. I would like to try the refined enhanced performance shea butters.Eliza - I have lecithin on hand and will do a test. I've never worked with glyceryl stearate or polyglyceryl, but will look for a vendor to give these a try!thanks!
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UNITED STATES
AarhusKarlshamn USA Inc.
499 Thornall St., 5th Floor
Edison, NJ 08837
USA
Phone: +1 973 741 5049
Fax: +1 973 344 6638
Contact: John O’Keefe
E-mail: john.okeefe@aak.com
Web: www.aak.com
West Coast/California
Integrity Ingredients Corporation
20309 S. Western Ave.
Torrance, CA 90501
USA
Phone: +1 310 782 0282
Fax: +1 310 782 0283
Contacts: David Howell, Melody Howell, Lee Paler
E-mail: dhowell@integrityingredientscorp.com
mhowell@integrityingredientscorp.com
lpaler@integrityingredientscorp.com
For AAK materialsFor other companies selling similar, I'd suggest looking on the CTFA buyers guide, as I'm not a US resident, so any contacts I would recommend are going to be UK/Europe only
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thanks Duncan!
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Hi, Cgant! Would you tell about result? Thank you.
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Hi Yulya!Yes, I will be back to tell you my results!
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I did some tests using the glyceryl stearate... and I like it. So far I haven't gotten any crystals. I used it at 1%.
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You could also try cera bellina -
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@cgant - thanks for sharing! I would like to give glyceryl stearate a chance at 1% to see how it goes too.also, @itunu, would 1% cera bellina be enough, or should I use it at max. ? for a hobbyist as myself , cera bellina is a bit too expensive to fail in testing (and I only have 50 grams around ) :)
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I used it at 5% in a lip balm and it came out fine. I haven't tried lower amounts.This is what the Herbarie say about it in this forum"We use 5% Cera Bellina in our semi-soft Organic Shea Butter to make a firm, smooth, non-grainy solid Shea Butter Balm. This is not a product for sale, but something I personally like to use myself. For a "gelled", medium viscosity, but pourable oil product, use 3-5% Cera Bellina with any liquid oil.""1) Cera Bellina can definitely be a replacement for Caprylic/Capric/Stearic Glycerides (ie. ButterEz and NatraButter) to prevent graininess when shea butter or mango butter resolidifies after melting. I've used 5% Cera Bellina in our Shea Butter and it was perfectly smooth. It's possible that 1% would work, but I've not tried it. "Sorry I can't give you a definitive answer. Hope this helps.
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thanks for the comments! Cera Bellina sounds very interesting!! I must try it also!
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I have made today a cuticle gel (an oily gel) with 5% cera bellina, 10% shea butter (grainy) and other ingredients up to 100% (no other wax). I love the texture of the gel, so far no grains in it. I have a new favourite!Is glyceryl stearate safe to be used in lip balms?
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Use a food grade if you're really worried about ingestion, but it should be fine
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In regards to crystallization of shea butter & possibly other butters in products, I've read that this can be avoided if the shea butter is heated at 175 F for 20 minutes. Can one of you wonderful experts verify if this is true?
:D
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