Please help!!! Second CP failure this week.UPDATE!!!!!!!!!

[valkyriesmyst]

Hey everyone. Thanks for all the advice when I first posted this thread. Last weekend I gave it another go and I think I did ok. I think I made soap haha. I'm posting pictures so you can tell me what you think if this is normal or advice on what to do or what not to do next. Anyways, I made my recipe but with a tad less water and lye like it said on the soap calc. It traced really fast, I mean like two minutes. I think I over did it actually. But this is what it looked like...........

I was really jazzed about it I thought wow I finally did it. Then in the book it said wrap it up with saran wrap and wrap it in a towel. So I did that. I couldn't resist and an hour or so later I peeked and this is what it looked like. :?

Hmmmm.....
So I wrapped it back up and thought it's better than the last two tries and I thought maybe it was normal. I don't know. It didn't say anything in the book about it melting in the middle haha. So then the next morning I checked it again and it seems more like soap again but it's still a little opaque in the middle. Here is that picture:

So rewind to last night and it still looks a little different colored in the middle but I think it's drying back out but it's not totally there, is this normal? Did I do something wrong? I know this takes guts but I broke a little piece off and washed my hands with it. It didn't burn, it lathered and it smelled pretty nice for scentless soap. I know it's not ready to use but I couldn't resist. Please give me your thoughts, I'd be really grateful.

 

[jennikate]

That wierd look to the 2nd pic is the much debated gell stage. You did fine soap looks nice. I personally gell my soaps some do not main difference is in look of finished soap also ungelled often needs longer in mold before unmolding and cutting. 8)

 

[Bukawww]

Yup, looks like you got a partial gel...if it had fully gelled, the whole thing would look like the middle and then would even back out to the opaque middle of the 2nd pic.

For me, right now, in my newness, I prefer gelling. I tried NOT to gel once and got a crazy mess of partial gel throughout my whole loaf...blah. So instead of fighting it, I encouraged it this last round in a warm oven. Soap turned out GREAT!

Your soap will be great too if just a little uneven colored.

 

[valkyriesmyst]

So did wrapping it in the towel cause it to gel? It does almost look the same color now, if I look really hard I can see a slight color difference around the edges. At least it's soap this time.
Thanks for the replies.

 

[holly99]

Yes, wrapping the soap in the towel helped the heat to generate and for it to start gel. The gel didn't go all the way to the edges so you have a partial gel.

I am one of those that likes to prevent gel. I soap at room temp and then put my soap in the freezer for a while.