Ok. I'm going to confess. There was a time I thought that a simple coconut, palm, olive soap in various proportions was a perfect formulation. It was definitely kinder on my skin than what I was using before I became a soap maker. It was smooth, easy, and ... best of all, inexpensive to make. And you know, if you're just making soap for yourself, that's not a bad trifecta.
Except that when someone gives you a big chunk of shea butter and says "here, my kid isn't doing this thing...and you are", you figure...why not add it to all the soap? Right? I mean seriously, that's the way to get rid of a lot of shea before it goes rancid.
Yes, rancid. It's a butter, after all, and like any oil, it's going to get rancid.
But it has so much goodness in it y'all! So much. Vitamin A. Vitamin E. It's easily absorbed into your skin. It has stearic acid, so it makes a great shaving soap (not that I've quit buying the stuff in a can to shave my mommy legs...).
This mommy found an early bar of her soap last week - one that was just too small to sell (rookie mistake in cutting bars!) - and thought "oh, why not"... y'all. NO SHEA. NO SHEA. Oh lord.
Listen to me. I will never ever make shea-less soap again. EVER.