Teach Soap

Magic_hands....don't feel alone...I'm in the gel club with you.

BUT...I can't always get my soap to gel and I can't figure out why. Actually, for my first 10 batches, I didn't seem to have a problem but the last 5 batches have been hit or miss. I have a wooden mold with a double-sided dam that comes with a fitted cover. That's all I've used for my 15 batches. Since I'm still testing, I usually divide my batch in half and scent and color each half differently and pour each half on either side of the dam so it's like I end up with 2 small batches. Well, here's what's perplexing, sometimes one side will gel and the other won't. My latest batch had the same coloring system on both sides but one side had a scent blend (BB's Lettuce FO, Tangerine EO and a touch of Neroli FO). And the other side had Kumquat. Both were scented at a rate of .7 PPO. The side with the blend gelled perfectly. After about 10 hours I decided to give extra insulation to the Kumquat side but the Kumquat side stayed semi-solid for 24 hours. I finally took the lid off because there was no zap and it's drying into a solid state now.

I'm not listing the recipe since it was the same on both sides, unless you want to hear it. If so, let me know.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
zeo