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. Makes 1-2 Gallons of soap (See notes below.)
Melt the coconut oil. This can be done in a slow cooker or in a large bowl.
Mix together the water and glycerin in a large bowl. Measure out the potassium hydroxide (KOH) in a separate smaller bowl.
Pour the KOH into the water and glycerine mixture. (Not the other way around!) Mix well until the KOH fully dissolves into the water/glycerine. It will heat up and be cloudy at first but will clear up.
Carefully pour the KOH mixture into the warm coconut oil, and slowly mix them together. This can be done in the slow cooker or in a large bowl if you don't have a slow cooker.
Using a hand 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 it until it gets creamy again. (You can take breaks, as needed, to allow the blender to rest. This prevents burning out the motor.)
Once the mixture thickens into a putty like paste, you can begin to cook it. This can be done in the slow cooker or on a baking sheet in the oven.
Cooking the soap paste
Cook the soap paste in a covered slow cooker on the low heat setting. If preferred, spread it out on a baking sheet and cook it in the oven at 70ºC/160ºF. As it cooks, the paste will become more translucent. Cook the paste for around 3-4 hours, stirring it as best you can every half hour or so.
To check for "doneness," take a small amount of the soap paste and dissolve it in distilled water. If the resulting liquid is cloudy, cook the soap for another half an hour before checking on it again. If it dissolves clear, you are finished making the soap paste. It can now be stored or dissolved into liquid soap.
Dissolving the liquid soap paste
To make liquid soap, dissolve the paste into water. (Preferably use distilled water to get a transparent soap.) The amount of water used depends on how concentrated you want the finished soap to be. I generally use 1 part soap paste to 1-3 parts water. You can allow the soap the dissolve on its own overnight or use heat and stirring to speed up the process.
Video
Notes
Keep in mind that liquid soap is not as thick as commercial gels and surfactants. Liquid soap is of a thinner consistency. You don't need to keep it thick for it to be concentrated and work well.You can also do a zap test to check for doneness. For more troubleshooting help check my post about troubleshooting liquid soap.