Why oh why do delicious smelling cocoa butter products somehow change to having a nasty stink when we use them?

[MingingInTheRain]

I just don't understand

Anything with a noticeable cocoa butter content just seems to go rancid when we use it on ourselves. We being me, my 16yr old, and my 8 yr old.

Any bath bombs with cocoa butter - smell amazing, drop into the bath, still smelling great, get in, soak for 10 minutes... Weird rancid fat cloying odour. Cocoa butter based body cream does the same. Soap seems ok but I guess we don't soak in it or leave it on our skin, which seems to be what causes it.

I've mentioned it to loads of people and got the WTF face but it's definitely a real thing for us. The internet seemed similarly devoid of information.

For reference, this happens with lots of different brands and products, at different times of day, they can be brand spanking new (ie the product itself isn't old or off), whatever the water temperature, and happens to all three of us. The smell is such that we have to have a hot shower to wash it off if we accidentally use a bath bomb containing cocoa butter. This never used to be a problem for me, I loved stuff like Palmer's body butter until about 6 years ago maybe? When this started happening for no apparent reason!

Any suggestions?

They're probably reacting with a chemical in your skin/sweat.
Like you know how sometimes a perfume will smell lovely on one person and horrible on someone else?

You could try something coconutty or almondy and see how you get on. Those are similar smells to my mind.

I just googled "cocoa butter smells bad on skin and hair" because I have a similar issue, and this thread was the first result. My DS used a bath bomb with cocoa butter and it made his hair and skin smell really weird and rancid, and his hair just went absolutely crazy matted and needed two showers with shampoo and conditioner combed through to get rid of it. So weird.