Bath Bombs Revisit & Recipe

Since I started making bath bombs 18 years ago I've been using pretty much the same recipe, its very basic and I guess its kinda old school. You can easily use this recipe as a jumping off point if you want to make different variations but I would say all bath bomb recipes start out with these ingredients.

Bath Bomb Recipe

1 cup of Citric Acid ( I like to use the powdered)

2 cups of baking soda

1 tsp of sweet almond oil

1 tsp of Fragrance or Essential oil

Witch Hazel in a fine mist sprayer

Mix the fist 4 ingredients really well then start spritzing with the Witch Hazel. Mix as you spritz, you are going for a slightly damp sand kind of feel. When you can squeeze some of the mixture in your hand and not have it fall apart you can start packing it in to whatever you are using for a mold. You can also shape it by hand into mini snowball shapes but most people like to use a mold.

You should be able to pop the bath bomb out of the mold right after you pack it. I have used one single mold for a batch of 18 bath bombs ( that was a double batch), they are pictured below and made with a sand toy.

And below are some bath bombs made in silicone ice cube trays. The fishy ones are actually toilet fresheners which are a type of bath bomb. The recipe is here.

Round bath bombs are usually made in two part plastic Xmas ornaments and you can also buy metal ones specifically for bath bombs too.

I also like to use Milky Way soap molds, below are bath bombs made in a Milky Way guest mold, I have some of these for sale and I really like the size for baskets and bath packages.

Since these are smaller I get 12 to 15 out of a batch. For average sized bombs you well get around 6.

Now for a few notes. The sweet almond oil adds a bit of moisture to the bath bomb and a bit of oil to the bath. If you absolutely hate oil in your bath, leave it out. I've used a little grated coco butter in place of the almond oil and that's really nice too. Some fragrance & essential oils are stronger than others and some people like more or less scent so the tsp of fragrance or essential oil is just a guide.

I will say if you are making smaller sized bath bombs, like ice cube sized, and you are only using one per bath you will probably want to add a little extra fragrance.

When I colour my bath bombs I tend to use a powdered colourant and mix it well with the dry ingredients. The little trees above were sprinkled with some cosmetic glitter after they were all unmolded and the glitter was set with a spritz of rubbing alcohol. The star fish bath bombs below were coloured gold for Christmas. I put each bath bomb in a shoe box and gave it a light spray with some rubbing alcohol that had a pinch of gold mica added to it. You have to shake the bottle to mix the mica with the alcohol.

I have used alcohol in place of witch hazel when making my bath bombs, the scent of the alcohol will evaporate but I prefer witch hazel which has almost no scent at all.

Here's a link to an old post with some recipes for bath bombs with powdered milk. Sorry there's no pictures, its a repost from a really old newsletter:)

Here's a link to Citric Acid on the website, and one to molds. We also have lots of fragrance and essential oils.

Anyway, hope this helps anyone who is new to making bath bombs!



Oatmeal And.....

 Last month I photographed some soaps made in this new to me mold with Honey Glycerin and Goat Milk soap bases. These two are the same, slightly different soap bases and different fragrances. Above is Goat Milk soap base with Coconut fragrance with a small hand of Oatmeal thrown in.

Below I used equal parts of Goat Milk soap base and Purple Glycerin soap base with Lavender essential oil and about the same amount of Oatmeal.

I found some of these boxes in my stash, they are 4 inches square and 2 inches high. Two of the soaps fit nicely in a box with some crinkled sizzle.

 And once the box is closed it's nice and easy to decorate, a little tag finishes it off. Soaps with Oatmeal are great for Mothers Day because that's usually when all the gardening starts too:)
Thanks for stopping by!



Mocha Mint Cupcakes

I bought some new piping tips and a mini chocolate bar mold (mold from Amazon) and had another go at Soap Cupcakes. These are Mocha Mint scented with Coffee & Peppermint Essential Oils and Chocolate Chip Cookie Fragrance Oil. I made the little bars with Melt & Pour soap and that's a real coffee bean on top.

So I'm happy with the piping tip I used, what I would do next time is let the soap for the frosting sit a little longer. It was thick enough to pipe after about 40 minutes but to have it really keep its shape I think I needed it a little thicker. I've read online that a good way to use these is cut them in half and boy do they smell good! Thanks for stopping by!

Confetti Soap

 I had some soap that I was not really happy with. Part of the soap had the side embeds pictured below. Here is the post where I made that soap, the soap in the post was OK, it actually all sold right away. I made a second loaf of soap that I didn't post, the centre didn't have much colour and I just didn't like it. So that's how the soap you see here was born. This is a 3lb batch and I think I stirred in 1lb of grated (reject) soap.

The embeds are the coloured portion of the grated soap. I just used a hand held grater, it goes pretty fast.

I had enough soap left for four of the bars pictured below, we are already using one. I added Energize fragrance to the soap, its a Minty Citrus so it goes well with the grated soap and the nice Spring weather we are having:)  Thanks for stopping by!



Eucalyptus & Rosemary

 I 've been wanting to do a soap with a scent combination of Eucalyptus & Rosemary for a while now. I think I did one years ago and probably coloured it with green clay. This soap is coloured with Chromium Green Oxide, there's a lighter and darker green both done with different amounts of the same colourant. Anyway, getting back to the scent, I was in a lazy mood and only wanted to use one colour so I needed the soap to have a fragrance that would go with green- so Eucalyptus & Rosemary it was! In the picture below you can see I glittered the tops a little, hopefully this can still pass as a unisex soap:) Thanks for stopping by!

New Molds from Amazon

I bought some molds on Amazon, two of the same mold that is pictured below. There are different variations, sizes and price points for molds like this on Amazon and I took a chance on these molds even though the reviews said they molds were very thin.

They are very thin and so far I've used one of the molds once to make the soaps you see here.

To fill six cavities I melted 1lb of melt and pour soap (1/2 each of Goat Milk White base and Honey Glycerin base). I melted the two types of soap together, added 1 teaspoon of fragrance oil and stirred in a small handful of organic oatmeal. Because of the oatmeal I was stirring the soap as I was filling the molds. The soaps are a little over 2.5 ounces each (around 2.6 or 2.7). I think they turned out really cute!

  

So for the two molds  paid $10.19 Canadian including shipping. I think that's a great deal and if they don't last forever I'm fine with that. In the picture below you can see how well the detail shows up, even with the oatmeal. Next time I make Cold Process soap I'll fill at least a couple of cavities and see how those do. Thanks for looking!

Cupcake Soaps, Very Beginner

So here's my first go at piping soap on cupcakes. The bottom of the soaps (edit: the bottoms are soap too!) are poured in individual silicone molds and I don't really like the fluted edges. They are thin at the top which I think makes them fragile in that spot. Maybe if my piping went to the edges it would be better but alas I think I used too small of a piping tip.

On this cupcake I used a spoon to spread the soap, trying for a look of a cupcake that is iced with a knife. You can see on this one the soap icing does go to the edge.

You can see I used the same embeds as last time. I know these are no prize but I'm hoping the next ones will be better, I've bought some more tips and can't wait to try them. Thanks for looking!