Everyone is doing the rimmed soap! I’ve been a bit intimidated by the process so hadn’t even wanted to try it…until I saw it was part of Amy’s Soap Challenge Club. So I thought why not, signed up and gave it a try. Here is how it went.
This isn’t the most detailed of blog posts; I didn’t get pictures of everything that I had hoped too. To be honest with you, I didn’t think that try #1 would work, so I didn’t take many pictures at all. But it did work! And I am thrilled with the results!
Rimmed soap is made in two steps. First you make the soap for the rim and then the next day you make the soap for the center.
I made my rim in a cookie sheet – poured to only 1/4″ high. Once the rim was complete, I put it into my round column silicone mold (you can also use PVC pipe) and then made a batch to fill it.
The most important thing about making the first batch for your rim, is that it has to gel. Gelled soap is more bendy and pliable than un-gelled soap. Un-gelled soap will just crumble and break when you try to curve it into the mold.
A cookie sheet works great for creating your rim. You only want your soap to be about 1/4″ in thickness. After making this batch, I think that it could even be a bit thinner. Mine still cracked a bit.
Take your cookie sheet and measure it. You can find out how much soap you’ll need by calculating length x width x height x .4. This will give you how many ounces of soapmaking oils that you will need. I converted my ounces to grams and ended up needing a 495 gram batch of soap. I used mostly olive oil and still did a water discount because of the high amount of olive. Here is what my recipe ended up being:
Rimmed Soap Tallow Recipe
Coconut Oil – 80 grams
Tallow – 50 grams
Olive Oil – 200 grams
Sodium Hydroxide – 45 grams
Water – 90 grams
Lavender Essential Oil – 20 grams
I used Mad Oils Mica for this soap! I LOVE the colors that I ended up with.
Peacock Mica
Brazen Hussy Mica
Wicked Mica
Yellow Raincoat Mica
I brought my soap to emulsion…very light trace.
Then I divided it out and colored each cup.
If you are using a cookie sheet, make sure that you cover it as most cookie sheets are aluminum. I covered mine with plastic wrap. I poured the soap into the mold using a mock-funnel pour.
Then I did a spin swirl! A spin swirl is where you literally take your pan of soap, put it on a hard surface and spin it. The force of the spinning swirls the soap. How cool!
Beautiful! I let the soap set up for a few minutes and sprayed with alcohol to prevent ash. I then put it into my oven, on warm, turned the oven off and let it sit overnight. I honestly couldn’t tell if it gelled or not because of the colors. I assume it did.
The next day, I unmolded it and cut it to fit inside of my round column mold. This is the tricky part. It did crack a bit. I used a rolling pin to help curve the soap a little at a time. You have to be gentle and go slow.
I then made another batch of soap using the same recipe; but made a total of 495 grams.
Coconut Oil – 120 grams
Tallow – 75 grams
Olive Oil – 300 grams
Sodium Hydroxide – 68 grams
Water – 136 grams
Lavender Essential Oil – 20 grams
Brazen Hussy Mica
I poured this into my mold and let it sit overnight to saponify. The next day I unmolded and cut the soap. I did have to rinse the soap to make it pretty and shinny! Beautiful!
Hi Amanda!Tehat’s beautifful. I made one a few months back. and loved the final result. I’ll live here a link where we can calculate the size of the bach by the size of the mold. I find it very usefull, hope you all find it usefull too. It’s in spanish, but it’s very easy to work with. Tks for sharing all your inspiration an work with is <3
Here is the link…sorry…lolol
http://www.mendrulandia.es/?id=56
Beautiful soap! I must say, though, after reading through all the posts commenting on the 80’s look, I must be really old… the first thing I thought about when I saw all the colors in your swirl was ‘love the 60’s look!’…. yes… the psychedelic 60’s! Like I said…. 80’s vs 60’s!?! Like I said… I must be really old…. ?
Katherine, you are right! This is “Pop Art” started I’n the 60”s going “Retro” in the late 70”s and early 80’s. What a fun wild trip it was!
Perfection in every way!
Love the 80’s look. You soap is just perfect.
Totally 80’s and awesome! Do you remember the big hair? Super fun soap!!!
Beautiful,looks perfect
I love the funky 80’s retro look you got with this batch! That is a perfect description for it. Thanks for the detailed info about your process too 🙂
Beautifully and Hip! Love it.
Your soap is lovely. I love the colours you used and the spin swirl came out great?
These came out great!!! Nice blog post about the process too.
Great work! I love the swirl ~ thanks for your walk through explanation! : )
I love the bright colors. Those were the days! Great job!
Very pretty! 🙂
I gave up trying a single, thin rimmed pour. I admire you for getting it first try! Lovely colors!
WoW love the colour choice! It came out fantastic!!!
Awesome!
Okay u got me w the description, now I gotta try it. It sounds like all a lot of work but it also sounds like fun and I love making soap that’s fun to make. But I still want one of ur first bars and I’ll pay for it if that’s what ya want cuz ur no diff than me u gotta pay for supplies in order to make the soap it didn’t just appear free. Either way I want u to wait for it SIGN IT FOR ME PLZ, and yes I said sign it for me plz. Anyway let me know if I need to send some money cuz PP so we can get on it. Thanks, Sandy
This turned out super cool!! I”m so glad the cookie sheet worked on the first try! You’re definitely a pro. 😉 The colors turned out really amazing, and along with the neons, I love the little splatters – really gives it that 80’s look!
Amanda:
Very nice, bright colors! And a great explanation.
Your spin swirl was really wonderful too (mine just got all mucked up on the edges.)
Good job!
Sly
I’m really interested in learning how to make soap where do you live do you live in Philadelphia or pa
Thank you for showing this! The cookie pan idea is great.
Love the colors your soap looks awesome. I’m on my second try, I had never done cpop and I think my first one cooked instead of gelling , also my pink turned orange. It was however bendable. I’m on the second one and it went smother. and this time I’m trying the heating pad method. I made a wood mold like Tatiana’s and a cutting tool, if I have a third try I will try a cookie sheet. So many first’s in the challenge for me. BUT fun and I’ve learned a lot.
Beautiful!