Rimmed Soaps Challenge Club

The Great Cakes Soapworks Challenge this March involved making cylindrical rimmed soap. This was my  first attempt EVER at making rimmed soap, a technique I have long admired. Our instructor was Tatsiana Serko of CreativeSoaps by Steso, an OUTSTANDINGLY talented soap artisan. As soon as I found out she’d be teaching this technique, I knew I had to take part! Together with the challenge host, Amy Warden of Great Cakes Soapworks, the two ladies provided members with different tutorials depicting two different ways of preparing the rim. I decided to follow the technique that didn’t require slicing a thin layer to form the rim - it seemed just too complicated! 

THE SOAP RIM:
I chose a recipe for the rim that would keep it pretty flexible, with the following oil %:  50% olive oil, 20% coconut oil, 10% palm oil, 10% castor oil and 10% sweet almond oil. I used lemongrass EO for this believing it wouldn’t have any negative effect on tracing or hardening (thankfully, I was right!).
I coloured four tiny portions of soap using liquid non-bleed cp soap dyes from Sensory Perfection and first poured large coloured dots on the base of the slab, chucked the slab into my warm oven for 10 minutes and then covered the dots with a thin layer of TD coloured soap. 

 

 I put it in my pre-heated oven (65^oC) for about two hours and left it in the warm oven for the night. The next day, after turning it over ... lo and behold :). 

I trimmed it a bit, rolled it around a PVC pipe with no problem whatsoever (!) and did my best to fit it snuggly inside my cylindrical mould. 

THE INNER SOAP:
The inner soap was scented quite heavily with May Chang and Lemongrass EOs. It traced faster than I’d hoped, which meant I didn’t quite get the design I’d hoped for. But all in all, it produced some pretty designs and I’m thrilled that my very first attempt worked out well. Still a lot to learn, though.

Once cut, here are the designs that emerged:

I see something SOMEWHAT reminiscent of a white flower in this one ... do you? Gardenia perhaps ... if you squint hard enough? :)

 

As luck would have it, my attempts to submit my soap (last minute, of course) were foiled by Mozilla Firefox which kept crashing every time I tried to download my pictures (sigh)! Oh well, I'm still very happy I made my soap and that I'll get to see, learn more and vote for those made by other soapers. Thanks for organising yet another fun challenge, Amy. And ‘spasibo’ Tatsiana for sharing your talent with us :). And good luck to you all!