Homemade Liquid Coconut Oil Soap
Making your own homemade liquid coconut oil soap is simple, thrifty, and very rewarding. Coconut oil soap provides lots of lather and cleaning power for all-purpose cleaning.
When I first made this soap, I had a great idea. I made a pure liquid Castile soap (made with only olive oil) and this liquid soap made with only coconut oil. My idea was that I would combine them, as needed, for different purposes around the house.
Oils in soapmaking
I had my reasons. Each oil in soap making brings different properties to soap (different from the properties they’d bring to a homemade lotion, for example). In a bar soap, there is a HUGE difference between a pure Castile soap made with only olive oil and soap made with only coconut oil.
Soaps made with olive oil are more conditioning. Olive oil is great for soaps meant for the face and body for that reason. On the other hand, soaps made with only olive oil don’t make much lather and they aren’t as “cleansing” as soaps made with coconut oil. Some people find them “slimy.”
Soaps made with coconut oil are cleansing and they provide a nice bubbly lather, but they can be drying to the skin when used alone.
Most people prefer using a soap with a combination. They want a soap that isn’t too drying, but that has some lather and cleansing ability. That’s why I used a combination of the two oils in my easy beginner soap recipe. I wanted a conditioning soap that provided some lather. If you haven’t tried making soap yet, you may want to begin with that recipe to get your confidence up before moving on to liquid soaps.
Read my post about the best oils in soap making for more information.
Oils in liquid soap making
Now that I’ve made these liquid soaps several times now, I have to admit that I don’t notice as much of a difference between the liquid soap made with olive oil and this liquid soap as I thought I would. In fact, I generally make this soap most often.
The biggest differences are cosmetic. This soap is much lighter in color while the liquid Castile soap is more golden in color. They also have a different scent. (If you add essential oils or fragrance oils when you dilute your liquid soap, though, you probably won’t notice a difference.)
I’ve found that both of these soaps provide a lot of lather. This one makes a slightly more abundant and bubbly lather. Neither one is excessively drying, although the one made with olive oil is slightly more conditioning.
My husband prefers my homemade liquid soaps for use in the shower to gels made with other surfactants because he likes the amount of lather they provide. (Yes, even the one made with only olive oil provides a lot of lather.)
Refined coconut oil, sold for soap making, generally is very inexpensive, so I like using it to make soap. I haven’t noticed a difference when using refined coconut oil vs. virgin coconut oil (which I used to use before I could find the more inexpensive coconut oil locally). (I used to make soap with olive oil more often because here in Spain it was the least expensive oil.)
Those with coconut allergies will be happy to learn that pure Castile liquid soap is also a great multi-purpose soap.
Why Make this soap?
Making your own liquid soap makes a lot of sense financially. It’s a bit intimidating, but once you’ve successfully made it, you’ll see it’s not that difficult. Liquid Castile soap is surprisingly expensive. Not only can you save a lot of money by making it yourself, but you are able to control which ingredients you use. This is especially helpful for people with allergies and skin sensitivities.
It’s also more sustainable. You can keep using the same containers and dispensers over and over again, meaning much less waste! One big batch of soap will keep for a very long time.
Before making this soap, you may want to read my post about how to make a liquid soap with general information about the process. It may also help you choose which soap you’d like to make.
Ingredients
This recipe uses only a few simple ingredients.
Coconut oil
Obviously, you will need coconut oil. You can use refined coconut oil or virgin coconut oil. It doesn’t really matter which you choose. Avoid using fractionated coconut oils or coconut oils that have been modified to melt at a different temperature. (If you want to use them, you’d have to run the recipe through a lye calculator and adjust the amount of lye used. Read more about using a lye calculator here.)
Lye (KOH)
Apart from the coconut oil, you will also need lye. In the case of liquid soap, you will need a different type of lye than the one used in bar soaps. For liquid soap, we will be using KOH, potassium hydroxide. (Bar soaps use NaOH, sodium hydroxide). All true soaps use lye. (For more information about lye and why it is needed in soap, read my post about why soap needs lye.)
Do not use NaOH, sodium hydroxide, to try to make liquid soap!
Glycerin
I use glycerin when making liquid soap for several reasons. Glycerin is normally a by-product of the soap making process. Adding more glycerin makes the process of liquid soap making easier and more fool-proof.
Not only is it said to move the process along more quickly, making the process quicker and easier, it also has other advantages. Soap pastes made with glycerin tend to be easier to dilute in water. They also may be more transparent and conditioning to the skin. (Glycerin is a humectant which can draw moisture into your skin.)
If you don’t want to use glycerin, you can just sub it out for more water. Just know that it may take longer to make and your resulting soap may be slightly different from mine.
Water
We’ll also be using water in our lye solution. I recommend using distilled water to avoid adding impurities and minerals that could result in a cloudy soap.
Procedure
Making liquid soap is very similar to making bar soap. Most people hot process their liquid soap, though. That means that they will cook it in some way or another to help finish the process of saponification. (Someday I will write about my experiments in trying to cold process liquid soap.)
In the past, I have recommended making this soap in a slow cooker. Over the years, though, I’ve had many questions about how to make this if you don’t have one. I made my last batch of this soap in the oven, and it worked quite well and was very easy to do too.
So, if you are using a slow cooker, you can add the weighed out coconut oil to the slow cooker and allow it to melt in there. If not, I’d suggest melting the coconut oil in a large bowl.
Making the lye solution
In a separate medium-sized bowl, mix together the water and glycerin. In a separate smaller bowl, weigh out the potassium hydroxide (KOH).
Pour the KOH into the water and glycerine mixture. Mix them together until the KOH is fully dissolved into the water and glycerine mixture. It will be cloudy at first but will clear up. It will also get very warm.
Making the soap paste
Carefully pour the KOH mixture into the warm coconut oil, and slowly mix them together. This can either be done right in the slow cooker crock or in a large bowl.
Using an immersions blender, blend the ingredients together. The mixture will begin to thicken after a few minutes. A couple of minutes later, the mixture will probably begin to look grainy. Continue to blend. (You can take breaks to give your blender time to rest. This helps prevent burning out the motor.)
Soon after the mixture gets smooth again, it will start to thicken. At that point, you may want to remove the immersion blender as the mixture turns into a paste pretty suddenly. (You don’t want to burn out the motor of the blender or get it stuck in the soap paste.)
Cooking the soap paste
Once the paste has formed, it should be cooked to help finish the saponification process and make a translucent soap. (I’ve tried skipping this step and the paste stayed opaque and the finish soap was on the cloudy side. Even cooking for a short time, though, was enough to get the paste to the point where it could finish the process on its own, with time.)
Cooking in the slow cooker is the best option, if you have one. If you’re using a slow cooker, cover the soap and cook it on low for several hours.
If you don’t have a slow cooker, the paste can be spread out on a baking sheet and baked in the oven at around 70ºC/160ºF. (Ideally, cover the soap paste so that it doesn’t dry out too much.)
I tried cooking my last batch in the oven and my soap paste didn’t get as translucent as it does in the slow cooker. Perhaps, it would have had I cooked it longer and covered it. It may have also helped to increase the temperature slightly. In any case, the saponification process did complete and the soap is safe to use, but it was slightly cloudier than the soap I make in the slow cooker. (See my video!) I’ve found that soap pastes that haven’t gone fully translucent generally improve with time.
Every half hour or so, try to mix the soap paste as best you can. You can flip it over to expose different parts of the soap paste to cook the paste evenly. As it cooks, the mixture will become more translucent. The process will take 3-4 hours.
Check for doneness
There are several ways to test for “doneness.”
One method is to dissolve a small amount of the paste into distilled water, checking to see if dissolves into a clear soap. If the liquid is cloudy, you can continue to cook the soap in the slow cooker for another half an hour before checking on it again. If it dissolves clear, you are finished making the soap paste.
Another method is to use the zap test.
The zap test
To check for safety of the soap, many soap makers rely on what is called the zap test. To zap test a liquid soap paste, run your wet finger over the surface of the paste and then touch your soap-covered finger to your tongue. If the soap is caustic, it gives a zapping sensation. (This has nothing to do with flavor.)
If the soap doesn’t zap (if you can’t tell, it doesn’t), then it doesn’t have any more active lye, and should be safe to use.
If the paste passes the zap test, but is still cloudy, it’s your call whether or not to continue cooking. Cloudiness is generally only a cosmetic issue and may be caused by a number of factors (including minerals in your water). Often, soap paste that isn’t translucent after cooking for a while will eventually get more translucent on its own.
(I once removed part of a soap paste before it was fully cooked to see what would happen, and after a few weeks, it looked just like the rest of the batch that had been fully cooked.)
Once ready, the soap paste can be stored or dissolved into liquid soap as needed.
Storage
To store liquid soap paste, scoop it into a covered glass or plastic container or in Ziplock type plastic bags. The soap paste can be kept in a cool, dark place for a very long time. (I’ve had soap pastes stored for years without issues.)
Avoid storing in metal containers and avoid contact with metal as certain metals can react with the soap paste and shorten its lifespan. (Don’t ask how I know that. 😏)
Diluting the soap paste
To use the soap paste, it will need to be diluted in water. I suggest using distilled water to ensure a transparent soap. You can add more or less water, depending on the desired concentration. I generally 1 part soap paste to 1-3 parts water.
For fragrance, I also often add a few drops of essential oils to my liquid soap at the time of dilution.
For more information about diluting the soap paste, read my post on diluting soap pastes.
Troubleshooting
Over the years, I’ve had many people writing me with various problems. One of the most common is that the soap isn’t transparent or that the paste doesn’t get clear no matter how long they cook it. There are several reasons that your soap may not be as transparent as you’d like.
Keep in mind that cloudy soap is generally safe to use, it just isn’t as pretty as clear soap. If your soap paste passes the zap test, it should be completely safe to use.
Temperature
Just as coconut oil turns solid and opaque in cold temperatures, so does this liquid soap, to a certain extent.
My partially diluted liquid coconut oil soap turned an opaque white and thickened up in the winter. When the weather warmed up again, the soap cleared up. This is only a cosmetic issue, but you can dilute it more in the winter than you would in the summer if you want it to be clear.
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Water used
The other most common issue is having used tap water to make the soap. Tap water has minerals and can have impurities that often make the soap look either cloudy or even opalescent.
For other problems, read my post about troubleshooting liquid soap problems.
Video
Homemade liquid coconut oil soap
Materials
- 32 oz. coconut oil
- 8.59 oz. KOH Not the lye (NaOH) used in bar soap.
- 17.77 oz. water
- 8 oz. glycerine
Instructions
Making the soap paste
- Melt the coconut oil. You can do this in a slow cooker or in a large bowl.
- In a large bowl, mix together the water and glycerin. In a separate, smaller bowl, weigh out the potassium hydroxide (KOH).
- Carefully pour the KOH into the water and glycerin mixture (not the other way around). Stir until fully dissolved. It will heat up and go from cloudy to clear.
- Pour the lye solution into the warm coconut oil and begin mixing.
- Use an immersion blender to blend the mixture. It will begin to thicken and may go through a grainy stage. Keep blending until it becomes smooth again and then thickens into a paste.
- Once the mixture reaches a thick, putty-like consistency, stop blending.
Cooking the soap paste
- Cook the soap paste to help finish saponification. If using a slow cooker, cover and cook on low for several hours. If using an oven, spread it on a baking sheet and bake at about 70ºC/160ºF
- Stir or flip the paste every 30 minutes or so to help it cook evenly.
- The paste is ready when a small amount dissolves into clear soap in distilled water.
Dissolving the liquid soap paste
- To make liquid soap, dissolve the paste in water. Start with about 1 part soap paste to 1–3 parts water and adjust as needed.
- Let it sit to dissolve, or use gentle heat and stirring to speed up the process.
Notes
This post was originally published on October 21, 2016. It was rewritten in May of 2021, adding clearer instructions, new photos, and video.
Dear Tracy, I tried a double batch with an improvised double boiler, unfortunately when using the stick blender the soap started to expand and boiled over into the lower container with the hot water which strongly reacted with the not yet saponified mixture. Did that happen to you before? Last time also it expanded at some point but not as much as this time, also I might have misjudged the size of the pot when doing the double batch. I managed to save the remaining soap and transfer it into a different set up – it is not fully done yet, but I think it will come out ok. Now I don’t know what to do with the contaminated water. I locked it up in a bucket, but I am in an area with no hazardous waste facilities, can you give me any advise? Can I neutralize it somehow to be able to dispose it?
Hello again!
Yes, I can see how working with large batches could be very tricky with a double boiler!
Were all of the ingredients already mixed? They just weren’t fully processed?
If that is the case, you should really just have soapy water in your bucket, so I’d probably save it and use it for general cleaning!
You can put it into a spray bottle and use it to clean around the house, add it to your laundry, etc., etc.!
If it had been processed longer, you’d finish the saponification process, and would work on making a more transparent soap, but for general use, what you have made should be fine.
It’s just like the difference between hot process and cold process soap. I normally just do cold process soap, which means I don’t heat the ingredients until the saponification completes before pouring it into molds when I make bars of soap. Some people like to because they want to be able to use their soap earlier. Either way, within a few days, the saponification will have completed. (It will complete on its own over the next few days when you cold process your soap.) In either case, the soap improves and hardens with time, too, which is why I always let my soaps dry out for several weeks either way.
In this case you should be able to use it right away for general cleaning. It may have not fully completed the saponification until within a few days, but since you aren’t using it on your skin, only for general cleaning, having the slightest amount of unreacted lye isn’t going to be a problem.
Keep in mind that lye is often used to clear drains, and the lye used for bar soap is also sometimes used for curing olives, making the coating on pretzels and bagels! You want to be careful with your skin and eyes because it is very alkaline and caustic, and could burn your skin just like an acid would, but it isn’t really a hazardous waste.
Pouring the whole bucket down the drain would probably have the same bad effect on your pipes as pouring a very large amount of soap at once down the drain. (If you have hard water, it can react with some of the minerals to produce salts that can lead to soap scum, etc.) That’s why I’d just use it little by little and get some benefit from it!
I hope that helps!
Enjoy your soap. 🙂
Hi Tracy,
I appreciate your sharing your recipe with us!
I gave it a go yesterday using 1 servings worth of ingredients and everything was going well
I achieved a thick paste consistency after mixing the liquid solution with the coconut oil and left it to cook for 3-4 hours (making sure to check up on it every 30 minutes)
However, what I’m having trouble with is that after 3-4 hours, the paste continues to stay soft (not hard or thicken) and forms a smaller layer of bubbles.
Do you think the crock pot is too hot? It’s set at low
Or do you want us to mix the soap paste every 30 minutes? If so, how long would you mix it for and to what consistency?
Thanks in advance Tracy!!
Hi Angel,
Yes, I usually mix it every time I check on it. That helps even out the parts that are cooked.
I’d worry more about the way it dissolves in water than the consistency. My guess is that the consistency can be affected a lot by the type of coconut oil used, the temperature outside, etc., etc.
I actually just bought myself a huge container of refined coconut oil. (It was cheaper than the coconut oil I usually buy for cooking.)
One of the reasons I bought it was to try to make this with a different coconut oil to see if things change. I’m also making it in warm weather for the first time. I’ve noticed that the temperature outside can really affect things.
I doubt your crock pot is too hot. If anything, some people have commented that they had to turn the heat up on theirs to get things moving when making the soap in the winter. You do want to be careful that the paste doesn’t burn. That would be your main concern.
I’d work on mixing it and testing to see how it dissolves. I’ll try to check in for the rest of the day to see if I can help you along the way if you have any more questions. That said, it’s already almost 8PM here, so I may not be around for many more hours before bed. 🙂
Thank you so much! For the oven method what kind of pan do you mean? Like a baking tray? I also would like to try a batch with sunflower oil. Have you tried that before? I heard it has similar properties to coconut oil.
Hi Travelcat,
Yes, I’d use baking trays with high walls, if you can find that sort of thing.
I don’t like sunflower oil for soap personally. It’s an oil that tends to go rancid more quickly in soaps, and I don’t think it’s anywhere near as cleansing nor bubbly as coconut oil soap. It’s too bad because it’s definitely the cheapest oil I can find here in Spain. We also have decently priced olive oil, which I do use quite often in mixed soaps for face and body.
Coconut oil soap is definitely my favorite by far for general cleaning.
In liquid soap, I have absolutely no idea how sunflower oil would be, but it’s generally not recommended in high concentrations in bar soaps, so I don’t know. (In bar soaps it makes softer soaps that may end up with ugly orange spots from rancidity quickly, etc.)
Hi Tracy, I tried you soap recipes and they came out well. I live in a community and to supply our needs I will need to make larger amounts. Can I just double the amounts in the recipe? The soap calculators give me a higher amount of KOH than would be just double, but I am not sure how to enter the glycerin. Can you give me a recipe that is for example triple the amount, would that still work in the crock pot? Thank you, travelcat
Hi Travelcat,
Sure- no problem. For doubling the recipe, I get 64 oz. coconut oil, 16 oz. glycerin, 17.18 oz KOH, and 35.55 oz. water. For a triple batch, it would be 96 oz. coconut oil, 24 oz. glycerin, 25.77 oz. KOH, and 53.32 oz water.
As for your question about being able to do it in the crock pot- well, theoretically, yes, you’d be able to do it in a crock pot if it were big enough to handle the large batch. Also theoretically, you can do it in the oven in large pans instead, if that’s more comfortable. Most slow cookers have their low setting at around 190ºF, so that would be a good starting point for a temperature. I personally haven’t tried that method, but was considering doing it for my next batch as a lot of people are asking me for a way to make it without a crock pot. I’m just about to run out of liquid coconut oil soap soon, because it’s the one I use the most myself, so I may be trying it soon and updating the post with my results. 😉
If you do try it, I’d love to hear how it goes.
Tracy,
I am wondering why you used glycolic acid in the mixture for potassium hydroxide
Hi Leon,
I don’t use glycolic acid.
Are you referring to the glycerin?
I use glycerin to make this recipe easier and quicker to make. (You can see my more detailed answer about the glycerin to Jessica a few days ago.)
can i ask what the glycerine is for?
Hi Jessica,
Of course!
I chose to use glycerine for part of the water component because it speeds the process. It allows the soap to move through the various stages more quickly, and it’s a lot more “fool proof.”
Because I am targeting these recipes to people who haven’t made a lot of soaps, specifically liquid soaps, before, it was important to me to keep things as easy as possible so that people wouldn’t give up out of frustration. I wanted to almost assure their success.
Apart from that, I’ve also read that it’s easier to dissolve liquid soap pastes made with the glycerin method. Whether or not that is true, I’m not really sure.
All of that said, you can leave out the glycerin and use more water instead, but be prepared to possibly need to cook the soap for several hours longer. 😉
How much more water would you recommend? The equivalent to the glycerin amount?
Hi Taylor!
Are you asking about diluting the soap paste once you have it made? (The recipe for the paste itself uses 17.77 oz. of water for 8 oz. glycerin)
I usually work in batches, and take small amounts of paste and dilute them. I start with a 1:1 mixture of paste to water. I then take that thicker liquid soap and further dilute it as needed for whatever I need. I have a post about diluting liquid soap here. At the end of the post, I also have links to some other related posts.
If I misunderstood your question, let me know. 😉
I was wondering about omitting the glycerin, you said to just add more water but how much more in place of the glycerin?
I feel like I’m missing something really obvious here, are you using weigh ounces or volume ounces? What’s the lye calculator you’re talking about?
Thanks for having this great site up!
-CM
Hi CM,
The soap ingredients are measured by weight, so they are weight ounces. I normally list my soap ingredients in grams to avoid the confusion, but I think I used a specific lye calculator that worked in ounces at the time.
There are various lye calculators on line that are resources for calculating how much lye needs to be used to make soaps of different types. (If you google “lye calculator,” several will come up in the search results.) Not all oils need the same amount of lye to become soap, so the calculators will tell you how much lye to use to get soap from different amounts of different oils. You can’t just switch out oils in a soap recipe; you have to figure out the right amount of lye to use for the combination of oils you want to use.
I only talked about lye calculators for those who are wanting to switch things up. There’s really no need to go to the lye calculator to make the recipe as is.
I hope that makes more sense.
If you prefer grams, my recipe plugin will allow you to switch the recipe to metric.
Thanks for your comment! If I can be of any more help, just let me know. 🙂
Oh and if you ever make a nice shaving soap recipe (hubby has very sensitive skin) I’d love to try!
Hi Tracy,
I worked out what went wrong with my first batch I was mixing the soap with tap water (Sydney, Australia) and that’s why it was cloudy. Oops anyway now I have 3 Kgs of coconut paste. I’m so happy! Thank you as always!
Re-done it’s perfect thank you. Yay!
Wow! You’re quick. You made a new batch while I was sleeping. 🙂
It’s interesting that the problem had to do with the KOH not dissolving properly. I really wouldn’t have thought that that would have caused that sort of problem. Thanks for that feedback because it can help me troubleshoot for other people who have similar issues.
If you’re worried about the other batch, just save that one for general cleaning, and you can use this one for everything. 😉
Hello Tracy, so I discovered the problem ? when I was dissolving the soap to test I was using tap water, it’s the tap water that made it cloudy (Sydney Australia) as soon as I mixed with the distilled it was beautifully clear ph sits about 8-9 and its lovely! I now have 3kgs of coconut paste. brilliant. Also I am on the hunt for a good shaving soap for husband very sensitive skin if you ever make a recipe :).
Thanks for letting me know, Gina. I’ve been considering going through all of my soap recipes and updating them to say distilled water for all of them, just in case. Your comment has nudged me into actually doing it (or at least adding it to my “to-do” list- Ha!). I have heavily filtered water, and often use it without issues, but ever since I started making lotions, I always have distilled on hand, so I use it pretty much always now.
Your other comment came at the perfect time. I was actually telling my husband when we were on a hike this morning that I wanted to switch him to shaving soap and if he were willing to give it a try. He said yes to the soap, but no to the traditional blade. 🙂
I started shaving, after normally waxing, because I’m trying out a pulsed light hair removal system, and my skin is really sensitive. That’s what got me to researching how to make a shaving soap last week- true story, so, yes, it will likely be coming to the blog soon. 😉