Temparture for lye and oils?

[WonderfulSoaps]

Alright so I wanted to ask about the temperature of lye and oils, do they need to be certain degrees of each other? Do they need to be within certain temperatures? I thought the requirements I had were for safety but from my last post it looks like it a matter of opinion? I do not know and would love some clarification. Thank you so much for reading and hope you are doing well!

 

[TheGecko]

New soapers are often taught to soap at about 110F with the oils and lye being within 10 degrees. I think that it’s to simply things.

As with pretty much all soaping, it’s a matter of personal preference depending on your recipe and what you are wanting to do. When making Goat Milk Soap I generally soap at around 75-80F because I use fresh goat milk and don’t want to scorch my milk, but you have to be careful as not to end up with a false trace.

I master batch my oils and lye these days for my regular soap so I tend to soap on the cooler side...under 100F. And it works for my recipe.

 

[GemstonePony]

If I'm doing a recipe with no pattern, few sugars, and I really just want it to saponify and trace quickly, I'll soap at 115-130°f.
If I want time to swirl with my normal recipe that doesn't heat up and has hard butters, I'll soap at 105-120°, maybe a little lower if I'm throwing honey or sugar in it.
And if I'm doing a cider or beer soap with a FO that also heats up the soap, I'll wait for the 80-95° range before soaping.
I'll also soap a little cooler if I anticipate adding more liquid than normal, since that can also contribute to heating.

I believe the "waiting until lye and oils are within 10 degrees of each other" is to help you correctly pinpoint the temperature you began soaping at. Soaping hotter or colder can influence how your soap will behave and the reasons it might thicken. If you misjudge how much one temperature will affect the other, you might need to change your plans, just depending on how the batter is responding.

If someone knows of another reason for that rule, I'm happy to hear it.

 

[Relle]

Alright so I wanted to ask about the temperature of lye and oils, do they need to be certain degrees of each other? Do they need to be within certain temperatures? I thought the requirements I had were for safety but from my last post it looks like it a matter of opinion? I do not know and would love some clarification. Thank you so much for reading and hope you are doing well!

This gets asked all the time, here is some previous threads on the same subject- you can look for this in the search engine in the forum.
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/temperature-for-oils-and-lye-solution.80087/https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/room-temperature-soaping.80299/https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/controlling-temperature.80412/

 

[Cosmo71]

I always soap at room temp. You may be interested in checking out CPOP that is cold process, oven process. I have not yet tried it but it looks like people get more vibrant colors because their soap goes through a "gel" phase.