to.Gel or not to Gel...

[jodym]

i have always tried to gel my CP soaps
last night one of my batches did not gel no mater how hard i tried..
it actually is beautiful, no ash and the colors are vibrate. my question is
is it better to Gel.. im sure its a personal preference here. but what do most of you do?
im reading if i don't want Gel is to soap lower 90 ish?
thank you so much for any input. im soaping now for spring market and im finding my Gelled soap is getting a weird finish which im quessing its cuz it got to hot to fast and is going to take a bit of cleaning.. i will try post a picture.

 

[jcandleattic]

i have always tried to gel my CP soaps
last night one of my batches did not gel no mater how hard i tried..
it actually is beautiful, no ash and the colors are vibrate

Soap batter does not need to gel to become soap. It will just take longer to saponify and potentially longer to unmold. The colors might also not be as vibrant, but there is nothing wrong with not gelling. In fact there are many soapers who prefer not to gel their soaps.

 

[jodym]

This are my 2 batches the vibrate one is the one that did not gel.

 

[zanzalawi]

I always try to force gel
I made a couple batches that partially gelled when I just left them sitting out and I hated the ring and the texture it gave them so I do my best to force gel. I insulate my molds and I cover with a heating pad
(I also really want more vibrant colors)
A batch that doesn’t gel at all is nice but I don’t want to risk partial gel [emoji51]

 

[IrishLass]

It all comes down to personal preference whether to gel or not. In the end, it's still soap afterall. I myself personally prefer to gel mine, and I encourage full gel by insulating and adding a bit of gentle heat, but I also pour off about 4 oz out of my main batter into an indy mold to test how my batch performs ungelled. I like how I can unmold, cut and bevel my gelled batches much quicker, and I also like how more vibrant my colors come out.

That's very interesting- your side-by-side picture above. I would've guessed that the more muted one was the ungelled soap. lol


IrishLass

 

[jodym]

i know IrishLass! thats why im kinda baffled! not quite knowing whats going on! made them right after each other and didnt do anything different!

 

[dibbles]

I gel. If I don't I can pretty much count on ash. Has this been happening with other batches of soaps that have gelled, or just the one you pictured? What is the color like under the ash in comparison to the other soap?

 

[Candybee]

well I never gel, never get ash, and get bold brilliant colors. Plus my soap batches are mostly saponified leaving them covered overnight.

 

[earlene]

I responded to your other thread about the pictured soaps, but here is my response about 'to gel, or not to gel'.

I prefer to gel my soaps because I like them that way. In the beginning, I just let what happened happen and didn't really pay much attention to it. But eventually, I discovered that I did not like to look of partial gel, which does happen sometimes, depending on the recipe and the environment. So now I just gel everything. If I know it won't gel on it's own, I facilitate gel using CPOP, or in some cases, simple insulation. I have even encouraged gel by putting the soap outside in the summer (covered, of course) to take advantage of added heat.