Thank you both, Honey and SoapByTheSlice for your replies. I'm still steaming about it; spent more time than I should today Googling 'Cake Soap' and variations on a theme, and couldn't believe how many sites came up (all UK) offering exactly what I'm making. Amazon, Amazon Marketplace, independent businesses. So how come they manage to slide past the legislation? I have to say that, in this case, The Law is just stupid. How can it be OK to sell doll's house 'food' (which is always Fimo or its equivalent, and therefore rock hard) which couldn't ever, by definition, pass the Choke Test, and not be OK to sell a huge slice of soap cake?
Honey, I agree with you wholeheartedly, though; the challenge is in finding another way to produce exciting soap, but that's not the point. I found a site today which cited all the instances of choking, from trivial to fatal, in under 3-year olds and over 3 year-olds, between 1986 and 1995. Think the web site was berr.gov.uk, or something like that. There were countless items listed which had been documented as a cause of choking, and nowhere was Soap identified as being the culprit. In fairness, it could have come under 'Non Food', but Non Food does cover a multitude of things.
I went out on my weekly shopping nightmare yesterday, first to Tesco, then to the local florist and then to the newsagent. Tesco were selling 'Fruit Slices', lemon and orange slices (which look astonishingly like the orange and lemon slices sold as Christmas sweeties - I forget who makes them), and Bath Pearls in raspberry, lime and orange, each one about the size of a cherry and smelling delicious (and they'd be a real choking hazard). That was Tesco. The florist is selling bath bombs, which look like yummy truffles, and cupcake bath bombs (or Fizzies, or something like that), and are placed at child-height. One cupcake bath bomb even had a sticker on its bottom saying 'THIS IS NOT FOOD'. The newsagent had more of the same, but they were almost all cupcake bath bombs, with no warning labels at all. Lush are selling all manner of 'food imitation' stuff, and I've mentioned before that there's a shop about 20 miles from here which does pretty much nothing else but make soap cakes. Just Google 'Wedding Cake Soap' and you should find a link to the Halifax Courier website which had it splashed all over its pages.
From what you've all said it's clear that different T&S's look on the issue differently, but that makes it worse, not better. If the 'Food Imitations Regulations 1989' have been passed into law, THAT'S THE LAW!!! It's not open for negotiation - unless the majority of sensible people recognise that it's pants and simply ignore it. Trading Standards don't have the power to interpret the law as they see fit; they're supposed to apply it across the board. If they did, I'd have no issue with it but the law's clearly unenforceable (back to Amazon and Lush and Google).
I just can't believe that we've got to the point where the Nanny State claims to know more about personal and parental responsibility and common sense than we do as individuals. It's the Thought Police gone completely mad, and I've got to an age where I'm not prepared to roll over and have my belly scratched by some prat in Whitehall. The sad fact is that all our 'lawmakers' in government have precious little else to do other than try and justify their ermine cloaks and expenses; few of them have any experience of the real world and even fewer could do up their own shoelaces, I suspect.
Honey, I take my hat off to you - your soaps are just beautiful and you've 'surmounted' the issue unbelievably. I can't believe that this is all about SOAP!!!! As a child I was given Sunlight Soap - and if any of you out there are old enough to remember it, you'll appreciate how lovely it is to wash with Apple Pie or Strawberry Ripple Flan!!
Sorry for ranting ... am I forgiven ... ?!!
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) but not to make soap which looks like anything edible. Hmm. Anyone been on the Lush website recently? Or Amazon? Or Googled 'Cupcake Soap' or 'Soap Cakes'? Interesting, as well, that there's a brilliant soap shop about 15 miles from here which prides itself on confusing customers who come in thinking it's a cake shop; the majority of its stuff is huge soap gateaux, cupcakes and truffles. So how does that work? Has the whole world, or just the UK, gone completely potty? Apparently it's not enough to put 
I hope you'll all come and visit me in prison. Perhaps you could bring me a soap cake with a file in it ... ?!!
). Since then it's been re-made into a very good seller, but looks nothing like a watermelon. I don't like worrying that my trade customers may get into trouble, and I don't like worrying that I maight get into trouble too. But, like Honey said, that's my choice. 
In amonst all the other soaps, and bath products. 
