Coconut oil vs hydrogenated coconut oil in soap
Hydrogenated coconut oil is coconut oil with its few double bonds filled: by the USP monograph at most 1.5 % oleic acid remains and stearic acid rises to 8–14 %, so it melts at 30–38 °C against 23–26 °C. No document prints its saponification value. Hydrogenation changes the molar mass by under 0.1 %, so the calculator uses coconut oil’s, and a swap leaves the lye as it was. The bar comes out a touch harder, 39 against 37.
Coconut Oil Hydrogenated Coconut Oil Compare them with other oils
The published figures
| Coconut oil | Hydrogenated coconut oil | |
|---|---|---|
| Saponification value, mg KOH/g | 248–265 | 248–265 |
| Used by the calculator, mg KOH/g | 256.5 (midpoint) | 256.5 (midpoint) |
| SAP for NaOH, g/g | 0.1829 | 0.1829 |
| Iodine value, g I₂/100 g | 6.3–10.6 | ≤ 2 |
| INS (SAP − IV) | 248 | 255 |
| Melting point, °C | 23–26 | 30–38 |
| Unsaponifiable matter, % | ≤ 1.5 | ≤ 0.8 |
| Name on a soap label | Sodium Cocoate | Sodium Hydrogenated Cocoate |
Each oil alone
| Coconut oil | Hydrogenated coconut oil | Usual range | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardness | 80 | 86 | 29–54 |
| Cleansing | 68 | 66 | 12–22 |
| Conditioning | 9 | 2 | 44–69 |
| Bubbly lather | 68 | 66 | 14–46 |
| Creamy lather | 12 | 21 | 16–48 |
A single oil’s hardness, cleansing and the rest are the same sums the calculator shows for a recipe, applied to that one oil. They explain what the oil brings to a blend; they do not predict how a soap of only that oil would feel.
Swapping one for the other
Gram for gram, coconut oil and hydrogenated coconut oil take the same lye. For a kilogram of oil at a 5 % superfat, that is 173.7 g of sodium hydroxide for coconut oil and 173.7 g for hydrogenated coconut oil.
In the bar below, where it is 25 % of the oils, weigh the lye for one and put in the other without recalculating, and the superfat moves:
| Lye weighed for | Oil used | Superfat |
|---|---|---|
| Coconut oil | Hydrogenated coconut oil | 5.0 %barely moves |
| Hydrogenated coconut oil | Coconut oil | 5.0 %barely moves |
The superfat is the share of the oils the lye leaves unsaponified, planned here at 5 %; below zero, there is more lye than the oils can take. Put the oil you actually have in the lye calculator and it works out the lye for that oil.
The same bar with either
The bar: 25 % of the one or the other, at a 5 % superfat, for 1,000 g of oils. The rest: 50 % olive oil, 20 % shea butter, and 5 % castor oil.
| With coconut oil | With hydrogenated coconut oil | Usual range | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sodium hydroxide, g | 138.6 | 138.6 | |
| Hardness | 37 | 39 | 29–54 |
| Cleansing | 17 | 16 | 12–22 |
| Conditioning | 59 | 57 | 44–69 |
| Bubbly lather | 21 | 21 | 14–46 |
| Creamy lather | 25 | 27 | 16–48 |
| Iodine value | 59 | 58 | 41–70 |
| INS | 146 | 147 | 136–165 |
| Linoleic and linolenic acid, % | 8.4 | 8.1 |
Open the bar with coconut oil Open the bar with hydrogenated coconut oil
Fatty-acid profile
| Fatty acid | Coconut oil | Hydrogenated coconut oil | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caproic acid | C6:0 | 0.4 (0–0.7) | 1.5 (≤ 1.5) |
| Caprylic acid | C8:0 | 7.3 (4.6–10) | 7.0 (5–9) |
| Capric acid | C10:0 | 6.5 (5–8) | 6.5 (4–9) |
| Lauric acid | C12:0 | 49.2 (45.1–53.2) | 48.0 (44–52) |
| Myristic acid | C14:0 | 18.9 (16.8–21) | 17.5 (15–20) |
| Palmitic acid | C16:0 | 8.9 (7.5–10.2) | 9.5 (8–11) |
| Palmitoleic acid | C16:1 | 0.0 | 1.0 (≤ 1) |
| Stearic acid | C18:0 | 3.0 (2–4) | 11.0 (8–14) |
| Oleic acid | C18:1 | 7.5 (5–10) | 1.5 (≤ 1.5) |
| Linoleic acid | C18:2 | 1.8 (1–2.5) | 0.5 (≤ 0.5) |
The figure the calculator uses for each oil, as a percentage of its fatty acids, with the published range in brackets.
Recipes with coconut oil
- Hundred percent coconut bar 100 % of the oils
- Zero-superfat coconut laundry bar 100 % of the oils
- Seawater marine soap 90 % of the oils
- Coconut liquid dish soap 85 % of the oils
- Sea salt bar 80 % of the oils
- Solid dish and kitchen bar 80 % of the oils
Guides
Other comparisons
Where these numbers come from
Coconut Oil
Verbatim mirror of the FAO file CXS_210e.pdf; the official FAO link (https://www.fao.org/fao-who-codexalimentarius/sh-proxy/en/?lnk=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fworkspace.fao.org%2Fsites%2Fcodex%2FStandards%2FCXS%2B210-1999%2FCXS_210e.pdf) was Cloudflare-gated at retrieval. Table 1 (Section 3.1) = mandatory GLC fatty-acid ranges, % of total fatty acids, ND = not detectable (<=0.05%). Table 2 (Appendix 'Other quality and composition factors') gives saponification value, iodine value (Wijs) and unsaponifiable matter of CRUDE oils; the Appendix is explicitly ADVISORY (a product not meeting it may still conform). This print predates the 2021-2025 amendments; the 2024 additions (avocado, camellia seed, sacha inchi, high-oleic soya bean) are not included.
Slip melting point 23-26 C (Ph. Eur. 2.2.15); unsaponifiable max 1.0 %; refractive index (40 C) ca. 1.449.
JP XVIII 'Coconut Oil': melting point 20-28 C; acid value NMT 0.2; saponification value 246-264; unsaponifiable matter NMT 1.0 %; iodine value 7-11.
Hydrogenated Coconut Oil
The composition table was read from this HTML page, where the "not more than" sign is an image (images/chars/le.gif, rendered here as <=); entries carrying it are recorded as max, the others as min-max. Melting range <741> 30-38 C, acid value NMT 2.0, peroxide value NMT 5.0, unsaponifiable matter NMT 0.8 %; no saponification or iodine value. The page scan of the same monograph on the same mirror (https://www.drugfuture.com/Pharmacopoeia/usp35/PDF/1762-1762%20Hydrogenated%20Coconut%20Oil.pdf) prints "Official from May 1, 2012" and the same values (its text layer carries any limit signs as U+2264, which pdftotext keeps only with -enc UTF-8).
Same Table 1 composition, melting range 30-38 C, acid value NMT 2.0, peroxide value NMT 5.0 and unsaponifiable matter NMT 0.8 % as USP 35-NF 30; the page marks the deletion of the heavy-metals test "(Official 1-Dec-2015)". No saponification or iodine value.
Printing date 29 January 2026. Iodine value max. 2,0 g I2/100g (Ph. Eur. 2.5.4); free fatty acids max. 0,10 % (Ph. Eur. 2.5.1); peroxide value max. 1,0 meq O2/kg (Ph. Eur. 2.5.5); refractive index (60 C) 1,440-1,443 (Ph. Eur. 2.2.6). pdftotext -layout offsets the parameter names by two rows against the method/unit/value columns; -raw keeps each name with its method and value.
Coconut oil saponification value 248-265 mg KOH/g, iodine value 6.3-10.6 (crude oil, advisory); unchanged in the 2026 print. Used for the hydrogenated oil because hydrogenation to iodine value 2 or less adds 0.05-0.08 g of hydrogen per 100 g, which lowers the saponification value by less than 0.1 %.