Coconut oil vs palm oil in soap
The two hard oils of the classic three-oil bar do different jobs. Coconut oil is about half lauric acid, which brings the cleansing and the big bubbles; palm oil is mostly palmitic and oleic, which brings a hard, slow-wearing bar with a creamy lather. Palm oil takes 22.2 % less lye, so a swap is never safe without recalculating: weigh the lye for coconut oil and use palm oil, and the bar below is lye-heavy, at −2.1 % superfat.
The published figures
| Coconut oil | Palm oil | |
|---|---|---|
| Saponification value, mg KOH/g | 248–265 | 190–209 |
| Used by the calculator, mg KOH/g | 256.5 (midpoint) | 199.5 (midpoint) |
| SAP for NaOH, g/g | 0.1829 | 0.1422 |
| Iodine value, g I₂/100 g | 6.3–10.6 | 50–55 |
| INS (SAP − IV) | 248 | 147 |
| Melting point, °C | 23–26 | — |
| Unsaponifiable matter, % | ≤ 1.5 | ≤ 1.2 |
| Name on a soap label | Sodium Cocoate | Sodium Palmate |
Each oil alone
| Coconut oil | Palm oil | Usual range | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardness | 80 | 50 | 29–54 |
| Cleansing | 68 | 2 | 12–22 |
| Conditioning | 9 | 51 | 44–69 |
| Bubbly lather | 68 | 2 | 14–46 |
| Creamy lather | 12 | 48 | 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, palm oil takes 22.2 % less lye than coconut oil. For a kilogram of oil at a 5 % superfat, that is 173.7 g of sodium hydroxide for coconut oil and 135.1 g for palm 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 | Palm oil | −2.1 %lye-heavy: never swap without recalculating |
| Palm oil | Coconut oil | 11.6 %far more oil left: recalculate |
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 palm oil | Usual range | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sodium hydroxide, g | 138.6 | 129.0 | |
| Hardness | 37 | 30 | 29–54 |
| Cleansing | 17 | 0 | 12–22 |
| Conditioning | 59 | 69 | 44–69 |
| Bubbly lather | 21 | 5 | 14–46 |
| Creamy lather | 25 | 34 | 16–48 |
| Iodine value | 59 | 70 | 41–70 |
| INS | 146 | 120 | 136–165 |
| Linoleic and linolenic acid, % | 8.4 | 10.6 |
Fatty-acid profile
| Fatty acid | Coconut oil | Palm oil | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caprylic acid | C8:0 | 7.3 (4.6–10) | 0.0 |
| Capric acid | C10:0 | 6.5 (5–8) | 0.0 |
| Lauric acid | C12:0 | 49.2 (45.1–53.2) | 0.3 (0–0.5) |
| Myristic acid | C14:0 | 18.9 (16.8–21) | 1.3 (0.5–2) |
| Palmitic acid | C16:0 | 8.9 (7.5–10.2) | 43.4 (39.3–47.5) |
| Stearic acid | C18:0 | 3.0 (2–4) | 4.8 (3.5–6) |
| Oleic acid | C18:1 | 7.5 (5–10) | 40.0 (36–44) |
| Linoleic acid | C18:2 | 1.8 (1–2.5) | 10.5 (9–12) |
| Arachidic acid | C20:0 | 0.1 (0–0.2) | 0.5 (0–1) |
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
Recipes with palm oil
- Piped soap cupcakes 60 % of the oils
- Classic olive, coconut and palm bar 30 % of the oils
- Everyday bar, the usual three 30 % of the oils
- Apricot seed scrub bar 25 % of the oils
- Everyday bar, gentler 25 % of the oils
- Gardener's pumice scrub bar 25 % of the oils
Guides
- The soaping oils: what each one brings to a bar
- Fatty acids and soap qualities: what the numbers mean
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.
Palm 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.