# "soaping at room temperature"



## MGM (Jan 11, 2019)

This feels like such a n00b question, but I've been unable to find the answer (I might be bad at Googling)...what does it mean to "soap at room temperature"? I've seen recommendations for oils and lye to be within 15F° of each other, but that they can be anywhere from about 100°-130°F. In special cases, you might go higher or lower. When you "soap at room temperature"...are your *oils* at room temperature? My coconut and palm oils would be hard as a rock! Is your *room* at room temperature? What does it meeaaaaaannnn?


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## shunt2011 (Jan 11, 2019)

Room temp means your lye and oils are just that, room temp or just warm.  I master batch my lye and oils most times. I warm my oils just enough that they are clear and just warm to the touch. I add my lye and soap as usual.


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## steffamarie (Jan 11, 2019)

In a blend of oils, often the total mixture will remain liquid but will cloud up as the hard oils solidify at such cool temperatures. But yes, it literally means your oils and lye are at room temp lol. This is good to keep things moving slowly but may result in false trace due to your hard oils solidifying. You’ll have to experiment with your own personal recipes. I typically soap cool - 80 or 90ish - but not COLD. Room temp for me would be around 60 which is just too cold for my hard oils. I find that 80 gives me an advantage when I’m doing intricate designs.


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## Snowbell (Jan 11, 2019)

For me it lye water being baby bottle warm, and your oils clear. Both are warm but not hot.


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## MGM (Jan 11, 2019)

Thanks everyone! I will have to try this...but perhaps I'll use my mother-in-law's room temperature rather than ours....she keeps her house around 80F whereas we're closer to 68F....
I am looking for something slow-moving, but also want to avoid false trace. 
Can someone recommend a good beginner recipe that works well at "room temperature" range?


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## shunt2011 (Jan 11, 2019)

I use lard, so if you’re not opposed to it her you go.  45% Lard, 30% OO or Rice Bran, 20% CO and 5% Castor.  (Fixed, sorry)


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## dibbles (Jan 12, 2019)

^^^This is a good recipe, but I think she means 5% castor. Lard is so easy to work with and makes a wonderful soap.


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## Chris_S (Jan 12, 2019)

dibbles said:


> ^^^This is a good recipe, but I think she means 5% castor. Lard is so easy to work with and makes a wonderful soap.



Thank you for adding this i was thinking why add lard twice lol never even clicked it would be castor oil. Think ill give this recipe a bash i really really like my unscented goats milk and lard soap i made a few month ago its annoyingly soft still though so want to give lard another chance


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## MGM (Jan 12, 2019)

shunt2011 said:


> I use lard, so if you’re not opposed to it her you go.  45% Lard, 30% OO or Rice Bran, 20% CO and 5% Lard.



No, not opposed to lard...I don't eat it because most contain TBHQ which is a preservative my kids are allergic to, but I'm thinking that won't last through saponification (plus it's a wash-off). Quite looking forward to lard, TBH....I only wish I'd read Marie Rayma's eloquent explanation before I bought my 5L pail of palm....

I do see you like lard *so much* that you listed it twice  ....commenters then said maybe you mean CO for the 5% at the end, but you've got CO, at 20%...is something missing? I'm betting you use 5% CO but you forgot a whole other oil in there....

OH WAIT...I was reading CO as castor oil and 20% seemed high. THEY were reading CO as coconut oil and of course they're right.
And I think we're all right that it's 5% castor oil at the end

45% lard
30% OO or Rice Bran
20% Coconut Oil
5% Castor Oil

Case closed!

thanks!


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## Marilyn Norgart (Jan 12, 2019)

shunt2011 said:


> Room temp means your lye and oils are just that, room temp or just warm.  I master batch my lye and oils most times. I warm my oils just enough that they are clear and just warm to the touch. I add my lye and soap as usual.


how warm is your lye? I have been reading up on this cuz I don't want some of my soaps to go thru gel.  but it really confuses me.  I watched a video where a lady made up her lye the day before and melted her oils and then made the soap but I was wondering if cold lye would make the oils hard


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## shunt2011 (Jan 12, 2019)

Marilyn Norgart said:


> how warm is your lye? I have been reading up on this cuz I don't want some of my soaps to go thru gel.  but it really confuses me.  I watched a video where a lady made up her lye the day before and melted her oils and then made the soap but I was wondering if cold lye would make the oils hard



My lye is at room temp.  I gel all my soaps.  If you Soap at 33% it’s harder to get gel though partial is possible depending on your soap vessel.  Less water harder to gel.


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## Marilyn Norgart (Jan 12, 2019)

shunt2011 said:


> My lye is at room temp.  I gel all my soaps.  If you Soap at 33% it’s harder to get gel though partial is possible depending on your soap vessel.  Less water harder to gel.


ooops I meant to say NOT to go thru gel.  I have tried less water but still wind up getting a partial gel.  question though--if I use less water would that up the likely hood of the soap seizing?


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## amd (Jan 15, 2019)

I've played with lots of temps and situations. My first batch, maybe first two - I know it didn't last very long - was the painful process of matching temps. After that I moved on to thermal transfer - using fresh made lye to melt hard oils. I made my lye, measured out each oil, and carefully added each oil to the lye and hand stirring, allowing the hard oils to melt before adding the next oil. (_Carefully_ adding the oils to avoid splashing the lye out of the pot - dangerous! Knowing better now, I recommend putting all the oils in the bowl and adding the lye to that in one go.) That worked well for me for a year and a half, through several different recipes while I was experimenting to find a recipe I loved. When I started selling, I very quickly switched to masterbatching my oils and using fresh lye. Masterbatching oils: I melt 12lbs of oil together and pour into a bucket and let it cool. I remove what I need for each batch. My current recipe is 65% hard oils, and the masterbatched oils have the consistency of a loose balm, slightly looser than vaseline (if I remember vaseline correctly, I haven't touched the stuff in years). This year I moved on to masterbatching lye, so my lye is about 120°F when I add it to my oils. If the soap dungeon is chilly, I might warm up my oils in the microwave for 30-60 seconds to loosen it up a bit, but it's not hot, more like slightly warmish. About the only thing I haven't done is adding room temp lye to completely melted oils... oh, wait... yeah, I did that too with my first beer soap. It worked fine. So all that said... there's a lot of ways to make soap. 



Marilyn Norgart said:


> I watched a video where a lady made up her lye the day before and melted her oils and then made the soap but I was wondering if cold lye would make the oils hard


One thing that I noticed is that even room temp lye and room temp oils will warm up when combined. I believe this is the "energy" of the saponification process [disclaimer: not a scientist nor do I play one on TV]. I feel that this reaction would override the concern of cold lye making the oils hard. YMMV depending on what/how much hard oils you have. It might not be enough if you had something like stearic acid, or a ton of cocoa butter in the recipe.


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## dixiedragon (Jan 15, 2019)

Marilyn Norgart said:


> how warm is your lye? I have been reading up on this cuz I don't want some of my soaps to go thru gel.  but it really confuses me.  I watched a video where a lady made up her lye the day before and melted her oils and then made the soap but I was wondering if cold lye would make the oils hard



I also like to make my lye water the night before. This is because I am impatient and I am very very apt to say, "It's cool enough," when it's not! I am a soaper who must use a thermometer for this reason.

Whether it will make your oils harden up depends on the oils and how cool. My personal preference is to heat my oils to 90 or so and use room-temp lye water, which is about 70 for me this time of year. In the summer's it's closer to 80.


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## Marilyn Norgart (Jan 15, 2019)

dixiedragon said:


> I also like to make my lye water the night before. This is because I am impatient and I am very very apt to say, "It's cool enough," when it's not! I am a soaper who must use a thermometer for this reason.
> 
> Whether it will make your oils harden up depends on the oils and how cool. My personal preference is to heat my oils to 90 or so and use room-temp lye water, which is about 70 for me this time of year. In the summer's it's closer to 80.


thank you, I am going to try this this coming weekend after I check out what temps my oils harden up at---does it matter at all if the oils are warmer than the lye water?


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## Marilyn Norgart (Jan 15, 2019)

amd said:


> I've played with lots of temps and situations. My first batch, maybe first two - I know it didn't last very long - was the painful process of matching temps. After that I moved on to thermal transfer - using fresh made lye to melt hard oils. I made my lye, measured out each oil, and carefully added each oil to the lye and hand stirring, allowing the hard oils to melt before adding the next oil. (_Carefully_ adding the oils to avoid splashing the lye out of the pot - dangerous! Knowing better now, I recommend putting all the oils in the bowl and adding the lye to that in one go.) That worked well for me for a year and a half, through several different recipes while I was experimenting to find a recipe I loved. When I started selling, I very quickly switched to masterbatching my oils and using fresh lye. Masterbatching oils: I melt 12lbs of oil together and pour into a bucket and let it cool. I remove what I need for each batch. My current recipe is 65% hard oils, and the masterbatched oils have the consistency of a loose balm, slightly looser than vaseline (if I remember vaseline correctly, I haven't touched the stuff in years). This year I moved on to masterbatching lye, so my lye is about 120°F when I add it to my oils. If the soap dungeon is chilly, I might warm up my oils in the microwave for 30-60 seconds to loosen it up a bit, but it's not hot, more like slightly warmish. About the only thing I haven't done is adding room temp lye to completely melted oils... oh, wait... yeah, I did that too with my first beer soap. It worked fine. So all that said... there's a lot of ways to make soap.
> 
> 
> One thing that I noticed is that even room temp lye and room temp oils will warm up when combined. I believe this is the "energy" of the saponification process [disclaimer: not a scientist nor do I play one on TV]. I feel that this reaction would override the concern of cold lye making the oils hard. YMMV depending on what/how much hard oils you have. It might not be enough if you had something like stearic acid, or a ton of cocoa butter in the recipe.


thank you very interesting!!  does your soap gel doing this?  I don't mind the gel but there are a couple soaps I want to do with out the gel and nothing ticks me off more when it gels but only 3/4 of the way.  do you make soap with milk? and the beer soap sounds interesting


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## dixiedragon (Jan 15, 2019)

Marilyn Norgart said:


> thank you, I am going to try this this coming weekend after I check out what temps my oils harden up at---does it matter at all if the oils are warmer than the lye water?



There used to always be a strict rule that your oil and lye water HAD to be within 10 degrees of each other. Deanna explained that's because if your lye water is much cooler than your oils, that when you pour the lye water in the oils it could become steam. Which would obviously be bad. But that only happens at much higher temps. I've added room temp lye water to 120 oils and never had a problem.


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## DeeAnna (Jan 15, 2019)

I make beer soap fairly often. Beer soap heats up a fair bit while saponifying, so it will be tough to keep it from gelling without a lot of fussing. I'm not into fussing, so I let it do its thing. I don't ever insulate or CPOP beer soap -- I want to keep it from overheating, in fact.

I usually make high lard recipes and I warm my fats until they are just clear. That's usually around 90-100 F / 33-38 C. I usually use room temperature lye solution. The initial batter temp is typically around 95-105 F / 35-40 C right after mixing the ingredients with a stick blender for a second or two.

The soap batter often warms slightly right at first for a couple of reasons. One is if you add any water-based liquid to the lye solution, there is some temp rise due to what's called the "heat of solution." The other reason for a slight temperature rise is the heat created by the start of the saponification reaction. This isn't always consistent, but I've seen this temp rise enough times to not be surprised.


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## Marilyn Norgart (Jan 15, 2019)

dixiedragon said:


> There used to always be a strict rule that your oil and lye water HAD to be within 10 degrees of each other. Deanna explained that's because if your lye water is much cooler than your oils, that when you pour the lye water in the oils it could become steam. Which would obviously be bad. But that only happens at much higher temps. I've added room temp lye water to 120 oils and never had a problem.


I really appreciate your and DeeAnna's help in explaining this to me!!


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## Marilyn Norgart (Jan 15, 2019)

DeeAnna said:


> I make beer soap fairly often. Beer soap heats up a fair bit while saponifying, so it will be tough to keep it from gelling without a lot of fussing. I'm not into fussing, so I let it do its thing. I don't ever insulate or CPOP beer soap -- I want to keep it from overheating, in fact.
> 
> I usually make high lard recipes and I warm my fats until they are just clear. That's usually around 90-100 F / 33-38 C. I usually use room temperature lye solution. The initial batter temp is typically around 95-105 F / 35-40 C right after mixing the ingredients with a stick blender for a second or two.
> 
> The soap batter often warms slightly right at first for a couple of reasons. One is if you add any water-based liquid to the lye solution, there is some temp rise due to what's called the "heat of solution." The other reason for a slight temperature rise is the heat created by the start of the saponification reaction. This isn't always consistent, but I've seen this temp rise enough times to not be surprised.


again thank you soo much, between you and dixiedragon I am understanding this process more.  I use lard and coconut oil and a liquid oil (the liquid oil kind depends on my mood at the time) with the lard and coconut oil being the higher percentages but not by much.  I love the suds I get!


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## amd (Jan 15, 2019)

Marilyn Norgart said:


> thank you very interesting!!  does your soap gel doing this?  I don't mind the gel but there are a couple soaps I want to do with out the gel and nothing ticks me off more when it gels but only 3/4 of the way.  do you make soap with milk? and the beer soap sounds interesting


Yes, although not all the way through every time. I have a thick wood mold, and cover and insulate my soaps too. If I don't want a gel I don't insulate, although there's rarely any time that I don't want gel. When I make buttermilk soap, it goes straight into the fridge otherwise the milk scorches, even if uninsulated. Typically even my soaps that don't gel all the way through, the noticeable ring where it gels will "cure out" - it doesn't go away it just isn't noticeable by the time the cure is done. I use coconut milk, buttermilk, and very occasionally goat milk. Buttermilk and goat milk are the only ones that give me a hard time. Of course, your results may vary depending on your recipe. I have slight differences in mine if I change recipes, but I've learned what I can and can't do over the years. I think you've gotten a lot of great advice here to start experimenting safely with your recipes to find the method that works for you.


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## Clarice (Jan 25, 2019)

Here is what I found regarding "room temperature soaping" 

http://www.soap-making-essentials.com/how-to-make-soap-roomtemp.html

In fact - I tried this yesterday for the first time with the "mango butter soap" from this same site.  The difference versus cold process it seems is that they lye solution is poured over your "hard" oils immediately after it is mixed, and the heat in the lye solution melts the hard oils.  I keep all my oils and butters in the refrigerator - so I am afraid I should have allowed them to truly reach room temp before I added the lye solution.  Time will tell.  I will unmold the soap today and then start the waiting / curing process!


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## Cherrydene soapy (Jan 31, 2019)

dibbles said:


> ^^^This is a good recipe, but I think she means 5% castor. Lard is so easy to work with and makes a wonderful soap.


Sorry if this sounds strange what type of lard?


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## dixiedragon (Jan 31, 2019)

Cherrydene soapy said:


> Sorry if this sounds strange what type of lard?



The lard you buy at the grocery store. There's a few soapers on here who go to the trouble and expense of using good quality leaf lard (which is apparently the lard from around the kidneys and is the best for making pie crusts, among other things). That is certainly something you can try! But I'd recommend just getting lard from the grocery store to check it out. My walmart has Manteca brand, in a green and white bucket (or sometimes in stick form). Some areas have Snowcap brand, which is in a blue and white container.


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## Cherrydene soapy (Jan 31, 2019)

Cheers we don’t have Walmart in the UK only places likes Tesco’s  so it is just plain lard? Thanks for the advice x


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## dibbles (Jan 31, 2019)

Yep, just plain lard.


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## dixiedragon (Jan 31, 2019)

LOL, sorry about that! Totally missed your location.

Also, trying to decide if you are using "cheers" sarcastically in this context. You're too polite to say, "I live in in the UK, moron," so you say, "cheers." ;p

Like "bless your heart" for us in the southern US. 

But yes, just regular lard.


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## Cherrydene soapy (Jan 31, 2019)

dixiedragon said:


> LOL, sorry about that! Totally missed your location.
> 
> Also, trying to decide if you are using "cheers" sarcastically in this context. You're too polite to say, "I live in in the UK, moron," so you say, "cheers." ;p
> 
> ...


For me cheers is more of a thank you I say it a lot, I wasn’t being rude.. I wish Walmart would make its way over to us  the only lard I have ever used is beef lard for roast potatoes xx


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## Clarice (Jan 31, 2019)

to be 1000000% honest, I MUCH prefer Tesco!  I wish we had it here!  I much preferred shopping there.  

Don't wish Walmart on yourself before you understand all it brings (check out "People of Walmart" - LOL!  

I say "cheers" all the time too - perhaps from having lived overseas and working with a lot of Brits.  I love it as a "thank you, have a great day, bye for now, etc. etc. etc!  

The lard we have in the US appears to have been made from pig fat from what I can tell. I am myself anxious to try beef tallow - which may be what you have easy access to?  I have thus far found it hard to locate near me so I am a bit jealous ---- You jammy cow  - and man oh man do I hope I used that correctly!!!!  A friend from Yorkshire called me that once meaning "you lucky thing" or at least so she said - so if that is not what it means, I apologize!!!!!!


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## Cherrydene soapy (Jan 31, 2019)

Yes you jammy cow is good  xx i will pop into Tesco’s and start reading the lard lables x


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## dixiedragon (Jan 31, 2019)

I agree with don't wish Wal-Mart on yourself.

In the US lard if from pigs only. Beef fat is called tallow (after you render and clean) or suet (before you render and clean).


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## Meena (Jan 31, 2019)

dixiedragon said:


> You're too polite to say, "I live in in the UK, moron," so you say, "cheers." ;p
> 
> Like "bless your heart" for us in the southern US.



I'm dying over here ...  



"Bless your pointed little head" was an East Coast expression I was familiar with ages ago.


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## Dawni (Jan 31, 2019)

Clarice said:


> Don't wish Walmart on yourself before you understand all it brings (check out "People of Walmart" - LOL!


I've seen those!! Lol

Yknow what's funnier? Someone opened several places called "WalterMart" here and even those come with the same.. ehmm.. kind of people hahaha

I keep thinking someone should document them like how the Walmart one came about lol


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## earlene (Feb 22, 2019)

Cherrydene soapy said:


> Cheers we don’t have Walmart in the UK only places likes Tesco’s  so it is just plain lard? Thanks for the advice x




ASDA is owned by WalMart.  Walmart corporate states "Walmart operates under 69 banners on 27 countries" and in the UK, that is ASDA.

https://corporate.walmart.com/our-story/our-business/international/uk


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## Rogue-Soaper (Feb 22, 2019)

Marilyn Norgart said:


> thank you, I am going to try this this coming weekend after I check out what temps my oils harden up at---does it matter at all if the oils are warmer than the lye water?


I like to make my lye the night before too.  I get way too impatient waiting for the lye water to cool.  Yes, my motto is "God grant me patience; NOW"!!!


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## Paulie (Feb 24, 2019)

I've thought I did RTCP.  What I do is melt my hard oils with the hot lye and add rest of oils.  SB till trace and pour.  I don't know what the neck I've been doing now LOL.


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## shunt2011 (Feb 24, 2019)

Paulie said:


> I've thought I did RTCP.  What I do is melt my hard oils with the hot lye and add rest of oils.  SB till trace and pour.  I don't know what the neck I've been doing now LOL.



You’re doing the heat transfer method.


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## Paulie (Feb 24, 2019)

shunt2011 said:


> You’re doing the heat transfer method.


Oh gosh, thank you for letting me know what the heck I've doing.


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