Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying. Edit -- A soap made with PKO is more soluble in water than a soap made with palm. A soap made with PKO will also be physically harder than a soap made with palm.
From what I found on SoapCalc.net --
PKO has lauric fatty acid at 49%, myristic 16%, palmitic 8% and stearic 2%.
Palm has lauric at 0%, myristic 1%, palmitic 44%, and stearic 5%.
Add the four numbers for each of these fats and you get a "hardness" number of 75% for PKO and 50% for palm. That tells me that PKO soap will be physically harder than a soap made from palm. No argument.
That hardness number, however, does not tell a person anything about whether the soap is less or more soluble in water. The "bubbly lather" number is the sum of just the lauric and myristic fatty acids. This number is the better indicator of solubility, meaning soap that dissolves in water more easily.
PKO is more soluble than palm because it has a lot more lauric and myristic fatty acids. You can see that in the bubbly score of 65% which is the sum of lauric and myristic. The more bubbles, the more soluble. Palm has only 1% of these more soluble fatty acids and its bubbly score reflects its lower solubility.
I agree this issue of hardness vs. solubility is confusing. It is common sense that a hard soap should last longer because the soap does not abrade away easily (like wood being smoothed with sandpaper). But it also makes sense that a less soluble soap should last longer because the soap does not dissolve as easily (like sugar dissolving in hot coffee). Ideally, a long lasting bar of soap should be fairly hard so the soap resists abrasion from the washcloth or skin and also relatively insoluble so the soap does not dissolve quickly when it is wet. No one fat gives that blend of properties, although tallow, lard, and palm come about as close as it gets to those goals.
--end edit
Soap based on lauric and myristic fatty acids (CO, PKO, babassu, etc.) is more water soluble than soap made with stearic and palmitic acids (lard, tallow, palm, etc.)
Soaps with predominantly coconut oil or PKO are certainly hard (meaning hard like a brick vs. soft like clay), but dissolve in water much more quickly than soaps made mostly with lard, palm, tallow, etc.
The OP was saying the PKO soap with huge hardness and cleansing values was not lasting very long. The OP said the second soap with Palm lasted longer, but it's hardness and cleansing values are much lower. Recipe 1 was certainly hard enough to resist abrasion, so what's the problem here? From my research, it's high water solubility.
Lathering is an indicator of water solubility. What soap lathers the most abundantly -- a lard/tallow soap or a coconut oil soap?
If you don't believe me, then please read Kevin Dunn's book Scientific Soapmaking or one of the soap chemistry texts available for free on Google Books, Project Gutenberg, Internet Archive, etc.
