One Gel, Three Finishes: GOLDEN Soft Gel Mediums

GOLDEN Soft Gel Mediums are a soft-body acrylic gel — the same smooth, spreadable consistency as a soft-body paint, minus the pigment. Mix it in and it extends your colour without watering down the body. Brush it on alone and it becomes glue, glaze, or varnish, depending on which sheen you reach for.

We filmed a quick side-by-side of the three finishes, and it's worth a watch before you pick one — the split-screen close-up on gloss versus matte catches the difference in surface sheen in a way that's hard to describe in words. Watch it below.

Upload the Soft Gel video to Shopify (Settings → Files), copy its file URL, and drop it into the tag above before converting in Bloggle.

Three Sheens, One Job

Soft Gel Gloss dries clear and glassy — the closest thing to invisible once it's cured, which makes it the default choice when you don't want the medium to show at all. Soft Gel Semi-Gloss dries translucent, sitting between the two, useful when you want a touch of softness without going fully matte. Soft Gel Matte dries with almost no shine, ideal for a flat, contemporary finish or for calming down a glossy passage nearby.

Why Artists Reach for It

Because it's soft-body, it self-levels more than a heavy gel would — brush marks relax out as it dries, so it's a natural choice for smoother glazes and washes. It's also a reliable adhesive for collage: paper, fabric, and photographs bond well under a coat of Soft Gel, and you can seal over top once everything's placed. Blended into your paint, it stretches colour further without changing the handling much, which matters when you're covering a large surface and want consistency from edge to edge.

How to Choose

Reach for Gloss when you want maximum clarity and depth, especially over saturated colour. Reach for Matte when you want a chalky, contemporary surface or need to knock the sheen down. Reach for Semi-Gloss when you want a middle ground — some softness in the surface without the shine, or without going fully flat.

Three finishes, one consistency to learn. Once you know how Soft Gel handles, switching between them is just a matter of matching the surface to the piece.

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