100% Coconut Oil Liquid Soap Recipe

For a great super-cleansing, high lather liquid soap, you can't beat 100% coconut oil. It's a great kitchen and/or hand-washing liquid soap, and performs well even in hard and salt water! It can be a bit drying to your skin, though, so not the best recipe for "whole body" use.

Ingredients:

• 40 oz. coconut oil
• 10.7 oz. potassium hydroxide
• 32.2 oz. distilled water to make lye-water solution
• .3 oz. fragrance or essential oil - per 8 oz. of soap paste - more or less to preference
• 4 tbs, of a 5% borax solution - per 8 oz. of soap paste - to neutralize
• 4-5 oz. distilled water - per 8 oz. of soap paste for dilution

Preparation:

Following the basic instructions in

1. Measure out and melt your oils
2. Make your lye solution
3. Mix the oils and lye together
4. Bring the mix to trace
5. Cook the paste using either the traditional crock pot method, or the oven process method - I cooked this recipe about 4 hours
6. Test for done-ness
7. Neutralize the soap
8. Add your fragrance and/or color
9. Let the soap rest/sequester

For this recipe, I neutralized it a bit differently than in the traditional liquid soap making process. I used a 5% borax solution made of:

• .5 oz. borax
• 9.5 oz. almost boiling water

To neutralize this soap, I used 4 tbs. of the 5% borax solution per 8 oz. of soap paste.

The coconut oil makes a very soluble soap, so you can get a nice thick soap with just 4-5 oz. of water per 8 oz. of soap paste. If it is still coagulating at the top of the soap, reheat the soap and add in a few tablespoons of water at a time. You shouldn't have to go more than about 6 oz. of water per 8 oz. of paste with this soap.

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