Originally Posted by wgscott

Coconut oil is mainly Lauric acid, a fully saturated fatty acid, whereas the fatty acids in olive oil are mainly mono or polyunsaturated, and longer chain, so I think that might be why they are more viscous. Similarly, butter is solid at room temperature, but quite runny when you melt it, presumably because of the saturated fat. Paraffin is even more extreme in that sense, because it is just a linear chain of about 20 fully hydrogenated carbon atoms, without a polar or charged head group like a fatty acid. (That is also why olive oil gets rancid, coconut oil is more stable, and candle wax can last for centuries without rotting. Most petroleum based oils are more like that than are fatty acids.)