How are you storing your oils?

[Galaxy]

I generally only work with Olive, Palm, Coconut, Shea butter, and Castor and I just store them in a cool, dry place.

My FO/EOs are in the same place, I don't refrigerate anything.

 

[Kamahido]

Same here, however they don't sit around long enough to go bad.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

Most of my basic oils, fats, butters for soap and lotion, and other stuff like Dead Sea Salt and master-batching buckets are in a 4' Wide X 8' Tall cabinet at the bottom of the basement stairs. The basement stays around 55°F year round.

EOs: I have a 4-shelf (plastic-coated wire) spice rack mounted at "eye level" on the laundry room wall (main floor). Each shelf is 4.5" deep, 17" wide and there's enough head room between shelves to hold a 16 oz bottle. The shelves are deep enough to double up on smaller bottles. I have blends on the top shelf and singles below that... in alphabetical order to make it easy to find what I need.

FOs are in the cabinet next to that shelf, along with Polysorbates 20 & 80. soaping & lotion making buckets, and overflow 16 oz bottles of EOs. The heating/cooling vent is closed so the laundry room stays around 68°F year round and we keep the door closed so no light gets in there.

Lotion ingredients, clays, powders, waxes, colorants, molds, reference library, etc. are in my office/computer room. My soaping box is on a shelf in a closed cabinet. There is a full-size closet on one wall where containers are stored top-to-bottom in re-purposed large, clear plastic, "Pretzel Barrels" (compliments of DH) which makes it easy to find what I need.

More containers (odd sizes) and lye are stored in a closed cabinet in the Living Room. There's stuff on a lower corner cabinet in the kitchen that holds all my Pyrex, glycerin, Everclear, and a few oils.
Stick blenders are in an upper shelf.

And my curing room is the guest bedroom on the second floor.

Now that I've written this, I think I need to get better organized. My word, I've got stuff all over the place!!!

 

[MorpheusPA]

Mine are all in a cabinet over the refrigerator. The coconut is solid during winter, slushy during summer, so the temperature never seems to reach 76°.

I wouldn't store a more unstable oil there--I'd use the refrigerator--but for most of the standard ones, it's fine.

 

[Susie]

I now keep mine in a closet, in a repurposed 5 gallon lard bucket. Except for the OO and lard. They live under the sink in the kitchen because we also use those to cook with.

 

[SoapEh]

I keep coconut, olive oil and lard in our pantry. The other oils and butters like shea, pko, avocado, almond, castor, etc are kept in a small cupboard that I use for only soaping oils. I have a few small bottles of fancier stuff like hempseed, macadamia nut, walnut; things I see in my travels and want to try as extras, but don't usually use as part of a recipe. Those are in the oil cupboard now, in a dark bin, but I thinking they may be going into the fridge just for safety. It's cold in the house now, but come spring it'll warm up and I don't want them to go off.

I just moved the majority of my soapy stuff upstairs to our guest/craft room. That's where the fragrance and essential oils are, in bins, in alpha order. I keep additives and things up there too; only molds, blender, thermometer, scale, spatulas, etc are downstairs now. My routine is to choose a recipe, measure out oils, go upstairs and get add-ins and a scent, and then only what I'm using for that batch is on the soap counter. Feels less chaotic and more organized that way.

 

[lsg]

I keep most of mine in my basement storage room. Others like extra coconut oil are in my freezer. Essential oils are stored in my basement craftroom.

 

[Dahila]

I keep a bit that i will use the rest is frozen in freezer

 

[Zany_in_CO]

I have a few small bottles of fancier stuff like hempseed, macadamia nut, walnut --- but I thinking they may be going into the fridge just for safety.

Best do that. Walnut, i.e., is great for mature skin (lotions & potions rather than soap), but has a short shelf life... if I remember correctly, 3 months! Yikes!

 

[Heika]

I have heavy duty plastic shelves that I bought from Costco that I store my oils in. I like them because the shelves are wide and tall enough to store 10 gallon buckets in. I don't do anything special for oils as far as temperature is concerned. Quantity is too large to store in a freezer or fridge, and I generally only buy what I can use in a few month period anyhow. I use 10% sunflower oil in my main soaping recipe, and because of its short shelf life, I purchase it as I need it for a master batch. I master batch 90 lbs of oil at a time and store my master batch in a plastic trash can with a tight fitting lid that I purchased for the purpose. I have been keeping my eye out for a food grade barrel to master batch in, but haven't found one yet. I ran a double master batch only one time, and my trash can looked like it was going to burst at the seams! I buy butters in fairly small quantities so that I use them within a short period of time. I don't like to buy oils that just sit around. I know it would be less expensive to buy in larger bulk quantities, but fresh oils make better product, so I try to keep all of my oils down to a quantity that can be used within about 3 months. The only exception to that is castor oil. I buy it from a supplier that is about 300 miles from me, and I make a trip to the warehouse for the purpose of purchasing it. It is less expensive to drive to pick it up than it is to have it shipped to me. I make that trip every 6 months or so, so I buy enough to last that long.

 

[Steve85569]

Once opened the lard is in the fridge along with the palm. I don't make as much soap as many of the others here though. I also use some of the soaping oils in the kitchen but we usually keep the olive oil for cooking in it's own place.