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Wednesday, October 12, 2011

When Bath Bombs Go Wrong...and Right!

Look at this, would you?  May I introduce to you the world's ugliest bath bombs?


Sad, but unfortunately true.  Cracked, crumbly, warty.  What happened?  Let's take a look...

Your basic bath bomb recipe is:
2 parts baking soda
1 part citric acid
Distilled water in a spray bottle. 

Yep.  That's it.  Mix that together and you get a lovely, strong bath bomb that fizzes like an insanely effervescent mega Alka Seltzer but that's as exciting as it gets.  No fragrance, no skin-loving oils, no pretty colors.  NO GLITTER.  Can you say boring?  BORING!

So, I went ahead an added a bunch of stuff.  Coconut oil to moisturize the skin.  Colorant to make it pretty.  Vitamin E and yummy skin-happy Juniper Aloe fragrance oil.  Glitter, of course!!  And spritzed with distilled water to make it all stick together.  I mixed it all up to a nice damp-sand texture.  I got out my handy-dandy stainless steel bath bomb molds and started molding.

As I put them one by one on the table to dry and set, I noticed some weird little bumps growing on the surface.  What on earth...?  I tried pushing them back in with my finger. 


Nope, that didn't help.  I left them alone but eventually they totally bottomed out. They went flat and smooshy.  I wish I had a photo for you, but I couldn't look at them any longer.  So...let's get to the point.  What went wrong?

The ingredients themselves were not the problem.  The problem was...too much liquid.  I sprayed way too much distilled water into the dry ingredients and it set off the fizzing action prematurely.  It was fizzing in there as it was drying.  Eek!  The other issue was not enough pressure.  My wimpy little arms just couldn't do the job.  Without resorting to buying expensive equipment, I got the next best thing.  My husband graciously offered to make my bath bombs for me from now on.  Trooper!   

Here we go.  Round Two.  This is how bath bombs are supposed to look.  Smooth.  Round.  Un-warty.


Wanna know what we did with the ugly ones?  3 mins, 41 secs of super glittery fizzing power!!