Experimenting in the workshop: Avocado butter

Randi from Creations by Eden sent me out some green avocado butter, which is "...made from solid fraction of raw-green avocado oil, then fortified with sal butter-stearic fraction and virgin oil de coco-crème® solid fraction." It's light green in colour and has a very earthy smell to it. It's quite hard and would need to be melted to include it in anything - you can't just whip this butter from room temperature!

I decided to do something basic with it and make a whipped butter. I used rice bran oil, because that was the challenge for the Iron Chemist and it was sitting right on top of my work table, and fragrance so I could get a better idea of the consistency and feel of the butter on my skin.

WHIPPED AVOCADO BUTTER
77% green avocado butter
22% rice bran oil
1% fragrance oil (Clementine Cupcake, what else?)

I melted the avocado butter and rice bran oil in my double boiler and heated until it melted. I put it in the freezer to harden. After 40 minutes, the middle was still liquidy, so I left it in for another 10 minutes. (I would normally leave shea, mango, or cocoa butter for about half an hour.) It was still liquidy, but I wanted to play with it so I removed it from the freezer, added my fragrance oil, then started whipping it with my whisks. It whipped up very nicely...but I can't get over that earthy smell. I added another 1% Clementine Cupcake fragrance oil and whipped a little more. Nope, still smelling it. So another 1% - I wouldn't go higher than 3% in a leave on product - and more whipping.

What do I think of it? I really like the feeling of this butter. It feels a lot like babassu oil in that it melts on contact with your skin. It's greasy-ish at first, but starts to feel drier after about 10 minutes or so (I think the greasiness comes from the rice bran oil, not the butter). I really like it...but I can't get over the earthy smell.

I don't tend to use unrefined butters because that earthy smell really gets to me, and this is one of the strongest I've smelled in a while. It's not an unpleasant smell, but it's something I don't tend to like in my products. If you like earthy smells - for instance, I can't stand having patchouli in the house or even catching a whiff of it at the farmers' market - then this is a great butter for you. If you don't, then use the butter at lower levels in your products.

Why use avocado butter? Avocado oil is filled with phytosterols and polyphenols that are fantastic for reducing inflammation and itchiness. It's great in a hair care product as it's easily absorbed, and it might help with dandruff prone hair. (Click on the link for more information on this oil.)

As an aside, my husband woke up yesterday morning and said to me, "You're lucky you don't have a stupid husband." I agree with him, but why? "Because you leave out these containers with things that look like icing and smell like cupcakes, and a stupid husband would eat them and die." One wouldn't die from eating whipped avocado butter, but it wouldn't taste like cupcakes. "But how do I know it doesn't taste like it smells? It looks like icing! You're so lucky I'm not stupid." He went on to suggest I should bake some cupcakes so we had something in the house that smelled and tasted like cupcakes. I think he's right - we need some real cupcakes! (I think you've figured out by now that I'm obsessed with cupcakes! And I haven't even shown you my cupcake fabric pillowcases!) And I am a lucky woman to have him (not just because he avoids eating my products)!