Essentially, I’m looking at the problem of starting with a raw ingredient - coconut oil - and transforming it into sodium dodecyl sulfate. Coconut oil is composed of triglycerides, which are simply fatty acids connected to glycerol by ester bonds. When the oil is ingested, the body naturally hydrolyzes the ester bonds, releasing the free fatty acids. Lauric acid is the primary fatty acid found in coconut oil (44.6%). The lauric acid from coconut oil is also the standard starting material in the production of sodium dodecyl sulfate (also referred to as sodium lauryl sulfate). In the standard manufacturing process, lauric acid is reduced to dodecanol, which is then esterified with sulfuric acid and neutralized with sodium carbonate. Sure, I could just buy dodecanol, but that takes all of the fun out of it. As for what I have access to: pretty much anything except the reducing agents mentioned above, and any type of hydrogenation process that involves high pressure. Okay, so I suppose that I could just buy some lithium aluminum hydride, but once again … the fun! That would remove the fun!