Taking gear off but even burn the mayonnaise (10)
I believe the answer is:
undressing
'taking' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both related to bodily activities as well as being present participle verbs.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'gear off but even burn the mayonnaise' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'gear' could be 'dress' (both can mean clothing) and 'dress' is present in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for undressing that I've seen before include "Disrobing" , "Starting to change" .)