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GreenSense:
Recipes for vegetable soaps, transparent soaps, natural colors, troubleshooting, and an in-depth look at the chemistry and natural history of soapmaking ingredients.

Excerpts...

Coconut oil is a wonderful soapmaking oil, but it should be limited to around 30 percent of the total soapmaking fats and oils. Fatty-acid chains that contain twelve or fewer carbon atoms are more acidic than fatty-acid chains with more carbon atoms. These more acidic fatty acids clean well, but can be drying when overused.

The reason is that C12 chains remove more of the skin's natural oil. The acid mantle on our skin's surface is a layer of oil that protects by serving as a barrier. Coconut, palm kernel, and babassu oil soaps remove this oil, because the fatty ends of these soap molecules match the skin's oil and quickly latch onto it. The soap molecule emulsifies and suspends this oil, leaving the skin without this layer of protection.

Any excess coconut oil left on the now basic site (without its acidic raincoat) releases protons there and irritates the skin. The skin pretty much says, "I don't like that proton there", and gets dry and red.

When coconut oil makes up 20 to 30 percent of a soap formula, it offers a wonderful lather, and in the company of other less acidic fats and oils, such as olive and palm ail, it is not drying. But when coconut oil is used as a majority percentage of a formula, it can irritate more sensitive individuals.

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