I certainly never heard of it before making soap. I bought some when I was playing around with recipes for my shaving soap but didn’t use it. I then tried it in my body butters and it really changed the recipe for the better. So here are a few basic facts about Kokum Butter from Wikipedea:
Kokum butter or kokum oil is a fat derived from the seeds of the kokum tree (Garcinia indica; also known as wild mangosteen or red mangosteen). Kokum butter is edible and can also be used for things other than cooking.
Obviously, I am not cooking with it, I am making body butter.
Kokum Oil is a very hard butter and I think this helps the consistency of my body butters.
I looked into where my Kokum Butter, which I buy from a company called ‘The Soapery’ in the UK. All their website says is that it comes from India. The actual production of Kokum Butter seems very labour intensive. Fruits are collected manually by handpicking. The tree branches are shaken with long sticks and fallen fruits are collected. The fruits are broken by sticks to separate the seeds, which are picked up by hand. Then the separated seeds are dried to reduce their moisture content.
I found a really informative article on the BBC website. Considering it’s wide use in food and drink according to this article I am amazed I have never heard of it before but I certainly like it in my body butters.
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