Making Bath Bombs!

Today was odd. It was about 70 degrees when I woke up this morning and by 11:00 AM it was 40 degrees with strong winds and rain. The weather in the Midwest is often strange! I had the day off work today so I decided to make some bath bombs! I know there are hundreds of recipes for bath bombs out there, tutorials, etc.... but I wanted to make a post about how I have been making them for a few years now. These bath bombs are going to make amazing gifts for some of my friends back home :)

The green bath bombs are lime and coconut (smell amazing) and the purple bombs are lavender, clary sage, and rosemary (also smell amazing).

Here I have the baking soda and citric acid whisked together in the large bowl on the left and the Epsom salts in the smaller bowl to the right

The recipe:
1 cup baking soda
1/2 cup citric acid
1/2 cup Epsom salts (plus a little extra, about 1/8 of a cup)
1 teaspoon water
2 teaspoons essential oil or fragrance
3 teaspoons olive oil (or any carrier oil of your choosing)
food coloring (optional)

One of the things that I do differently than most recipes is separate my Epsom salts from the other dry ingredients. In most recipes for bath bombs, you are instructed to mix ALL of the dry ingredients, then in a jar, combine the water, oils, food coloring and add slowly to the dry mixture. You have to add it slowly when you do this, because the wet mixture can activate the citric acid and baking soda and cause it to start fizzing prematurely. NOT MY WAY!!!

I add all of the wet ingredients to the Epsom salts and whisk together until fully combined. I do like to add a little extra Epsom salt because the wet ingredients cause some of it to dissolve.

Go home violet... you're drunk!

Then I dump the entire Epsom salt mixture into the baking soda and citric acid mixture. For some reason, doing it this way does not cause a reaction. Then whisk whisk whisk until fully combined. The texture should be like damp sand - not too wet, but sticking together when squeezed gently in your hand. Like so:

I was really excited when that weird blue color was actually turning purple. Violet can be one of the hardest colors to mix. I tried to mix blue and red food coloring before and it kept turning into some weird gray color... I bought this violet on amazon.

The next step is to load them into your molds. I use a set of stainless steel molds 2.16 inches in diameter. Here is a link to where I got mine on amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Y03H6O6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I really like these molds myself, but you can use any type of mold you like.
You want to pack it in lightly and overfill each dome pressing down gently as you do.

Then start pushing each side together smooooooshing it all the way. I sometimes have to turn mine back and forth to get the excess mixture off to where the two sides meet.

I also use two hands... but I needed one to take the picture

After the bath bomb has been compressed, take a spoon and tap each side. You will notice a difference in the sound of the tapping once the bath bomb is released from the mold. Then just pull it apart gently and the bomb should pop out quite easily.

Then just set aside to dry completely usually 4-6 hours. My 2.16 inch diameter mold can make about 6 bath bombs. I actually only got 5 of the lavender/clary sage/rosemary ones because I made a little mess and dropped a bunch on the floor... But I was able to make you a video with the remaining mixture I just hand pressed together tightly.

The water was just slightly tinted - no staining the skin - and my hands are super soft after making these! I really wanted to put some dried lavender in the ends of the lavender bath bombs, but mine is packed away in some box buried and I couldn't get it out today. Thank you so much for checking out my bath bombs!!!