Originally Posted by Wood Sprite

Congratulations on your first batch of soap!!!! Waiting for those first batches to cure long enough to see how they turn out seems like forever! LOL!

Regarding have the oils and lye solution being the same temperature, that's an often repeated myth. I use steaming hot lye solution and room temperature oils. You can also use room temperature lye solution and either room temp or warm oils. There are a lot of ways to do it. It just depends on experience and knowing how the oils in your formula behave and whether or not you want to gel your soap or not. There are so many different options that I encourage new soapmakers to read about the different ones, try different ones and find what works best for you.