adding lye to oils

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Irene

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Hello,

I saw a video where the lye was mixed into the oils as soon as the lye solution was made. In other words they did not wait for the lye and the oils to reach a certain temperature. The hot lye solution melted the room tempertature fats.
They then proceeded to blend with a stick blender and then poured the soap into a container to cure. Has anyone seen this before?
I am real curious about this process and it sure is fast! Any thoughts out there?

Irene
 
It can be done, but some people have had problems with not all of the solid oils melting using this method. I prefer to let the lye water cool to warm.
 
It's all a matter of preference. I mix my lye/water once a week and use it cool, adding it to slightly warm oils.

The best way is whatever works for you, your oils and your additives.
 
some people do it that way, but it didn't work that well for me. I prefer to let the lye cool and add it to my warmed oils.
 
it also depends on the oils that you use and the room temp/environment..

the hot lye would melt some hard oils/butters..but if they are BIG chunks you may have an issue of the oils/butters staying solid and not melting especially if the room is cool..

I do room temp CP and I breakup my cocoa butter into small pieces but then I also zap it a bit in the micro just to soften since my house can sometimes be on the cooler side this time of year..
 
I have done it that way using CO as well as soft oils and it worked just fine for me. Depending on what I'm making will determine what temp I soap. When I'm making a Castille I'll use hot lye and add it to the OO so I can get a little quicker trace....
 
As Lindy said, with the softer oils it works great but once you get into the hard butters, I would melt them first.

I do like this process though, I just throw my lard and coconut oil in the microwave for a minute then add my other oils then add the lye solution if I do not have hard butters to melt.
 

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