Impression Mats - December Soap Challenge

 Persian Rug

This month's challenge was incredible for me,  I was intrigued to know how my soap would look.

It is a beautiful technique created with a silicon mat that needs a lot of patience, but in soap making,  patience is the first thing we have to learn and that is something that is not new to me. 

We can use 2 techniques, the "mica dry brush" or the "soap spread".  I decided to go with the "mica dry brush"  it looks beautiful, shinny and shows very well the intricate lines.

I decided to make my own mold and use a silicon mat, a very small one as I wanted to make a small amount of soap that can be used as a guest soap.

I used  "Gold Mica" as I wanted to make a charcoal soap that would show a high contrast with the gold.  In my mind I could already see how it would look, but I had to see if it would turn out the same as I had  in my mind.

First I apply the mica very carefully,  making sure that everything was very well covered and when I was satisfied with how it looks, I placed the mat in my mold.

With my mold and mat ready, I start making my batch of soap with; coconut oil, lard, rice bran oil, castor oil and sodium lactate. I made my batch with a thin trace as I need to be sure that all the lines of the mat were completely filled.  When I had the thin trace, I added the vegetable charcoal and my  essential oils (Frankincense, Lavender & Cedarwood) integrate everything with a spoon and poured it into the mold.

I  CPOP my batch and after a few minutes the smell of the soap was incredible, a mix of exotic wood filled my kitchen when I opened the oven to see the soap...mmmm very nice!

Here is the soap finally out of the mold,  it looks very nice.  The mold tolerated very well the CPOP  and the soap turned out very smooth on the top (later it will be the bottom) still with the mat in the soap (pink mat) and without the mat, completely unmolded.  My surprise was how big the lines were as the lines on the mat looked so thin that I was afraid the mat wouldn't work.....the soap looks so beautiful maybe less shiny than I imagined but still very beautiful, I'm happy with the results and the smell....is incredibly sexy, I like it a lot!

I cut the soap trying to have the same image on each bar.  After that I dressed it to make them look more beautiful if it's possible.

My guest soaps, look amazing!!  I'm very happy with the results.

By the way, the name of the soap was my husband's idea as he says the soap reminds him of a "Persian rug"