I used to use the milky way brocade mold, last Christmas I made 100 bars to give to every one. Here are a few tips that I found worked well with my somewhat sticky recipe I was using then.
If you gel, you need to use a water discount. This will make your bars harder faster. To make sure my bars were gelling, I would preheat to 170 and then turn it off. I would pour my soap into the mold and then put the mold into cardboard box, and then put that into them oven. I always got a full gel that way. Once the soap has fully gelled, you want to take it. Once it is hard enough, try to pop it out while it is still hot. I could almost always get perfect bars that way. If you wait for the soap to cool and harden, It sticks much more to the mold. You have to babysit those molds a lot, once reason why I quit doing them.
Your other option is to not to gel. What I also did was pour the soap into the mold (using a water discount) and then in 30-45 minutes it would be firm but not gelled and I would very carefully turn it out onto a parchment line cookie sheet and then put that into the fridge for a couple of hours. I would wait a few days before moving them off the cookie sheet though because ungelled soaps are softer at first. Handle as little as possible till hard enough.
I hope some of these help. I stopped using the milky way mold because they were a lot of trouble. What you might want to look into is Wholesale supplies plus silicone molds. They have free shipping on them too. I think monday I'm going to order the round soap mold.
Oh and I did the freezer thing too, sometimes it would work and sometimes not. Doing one of the above tips, I would have about 90% of my soaps perfect, other wise I was lucky to have 50% because the middle ones would always sticks way more.
Ok I read a little more on the thread. I wanted to say that I had much more sucess if the were out of the mold by 5-6 hours. If it stayed in longer it stuck more. I know it depends on your recipe too, but really try popping those suckers out as soon as it is hard enough, like 1 hour after pouring (not gelling).
