Teach Soap

Can any of you lovely people help with some questions about partial gell? I hate partial gell even more than soda ash because it seems that once you've got it, you're stuck with it. I gell most of my batches, use the same recipes all the time, and I can cut two batches that were made within an hour of each other under the same conditions, and one will have gelled completely and look fine while the other has an ugly dark patch in the middle of it. Similarly, batches that have been in the fridge the whole time will have partial gell - I just sliced an avocado batch that has a perfect oval all through it.
Second part to the question - some of my batches have an almost translucent look to them when they're cut - it sounds pretty but it isn't. Is this partial gell, even though there isn't a defined patch of it, it's all through? They look almost damp, although they're no more damp than any other just-cut soap..... I cut a plain batch recently - no colour or fragrance - and it was mottled in the middle. I soap around 90, don't use a water discount, insulate most batches unless they are completely plain or have milk, sugar, vegetable etc in them.........
Bit frustrated. Would love some advice

I feel your pain
I suggest you try doing CPOP, that way all your soap will be fully gelled. From my experience, some soaps that I just wrapped in thick blankets would fully gell and some will end up with partial gel. I don't have the answer for that, I guess soap will do whatever it has to But doing CPOP all my soaps fully gelled. The only thing with CPOP - the top of my soap will "crinkle" a bit when I take it out of the oven next day but it doesn't worry me at all.
With the translucent look - yes it happened to me too. I was making stripped soap - white and pink, but when I took it out of the mold, all the pink stripes were looking translucent (I could probably see through them if the bars were thin enough) while the white ones looked normal. Go figure! ))

Thanks Possum - sorry I'm just getting back to this! I've never tried CPOP, my husband is allergic to the fragrances in the soap and I'm not sure of the effect it might have if I put a batch in the oven. Currently I only soap when he's out of the house, and although he is building me a studio to soap in (aren't I a lucky girl?) it won't have an oven. Guess I'm stuck with it. Funny you said about the pink being translucent in your striped soap - it's almost always pink that does that to me! Even using different types of colourant, it's nearly always the pink. I struggle to produce a successful rose soap - if the fragrance doesn't rice you can bet I'll get a funny gell.........

Yeah sometimes soap just doesn't want to give in! It has it's own mind!
I recently tried using pink clay and I didn't let soap gel - at first I put my mould in the fridge and let it chill, soaped at low temps and put it in the fridge overnight after pouring in the mould. I successfully avoided gel and my soap came out nice and smooth, evenly colored (no dark circle in the middle that I dread to see). Pink remained pink but because it was clay it was not really bright, more on reddish side.)))
I still want to do pink and white soap but now scared to get not what I expect in the end

If your soap hutch will not have an oven try a heating pad. I have been able to bring a soap to gel by putting it on a heating pad and covering it well.

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Susie
Sometimes A Mistake is so much fun, You just have to do it again!