What if I made a Bath Bomb?

Warning: despite how delicious this looks, Do Not Eat.

This week my wonderful friend Heaven chose my two pin options from Pinterest: DIY bath bombs and leave-in conditioner.

I was stoked about either option because I have never used a bath bomb or leave-in conditioner, let alone made my own.

My Instagram voters chose the bath bomb. All I could think about was the scene in Harry Potter: The Goblet of Fire, where Harry has to take his golden egg into a bath underwater. I was hoping for an experience as fantastical as that one. Though, I could do without Moaning Myrtle creeping on me.

Supplies

I roped my friend Jess into going shopping with me for the supplies, after our Communication Theory class. According to the bath bomb tutorial I was following, all I needed to buy was epsom salt and cream of tartar. The list had a lot of items, but I was pretty sure I had the rest of them.

This specific bath bomb tutorial used cream of tartar instead of citric acid for the fizziness, because it said that citric acid is bad for your skin. I'm not sure about the details, but I just went with it. The only thing was, Jess and I could not find cream of tartar at Walmart. It didn't help that we didn't really know what it was, or what it looked like. And that I was pronouncing it wrong...like Jar Jar Binks. (man, I have so many geeky references today) Luckily, due to Jess's skills and tolerance to my childish mood, we figured out what it was, but Walmart was out of stock. Perfect.

We found the ingredient at Smith's, but it was incredibly expensive! I'm not sure if it possesses magical qualities that I am unaware of, but I thought $3 for a tiny little bottle was too much. Especially, because the tutorial called for 1 cup of it. I decided not to spend $20 on cream of tartar and followed Jess's suggestion to 1/2 the recipe.

Getting Started

After my next class, another friend of mine, Sidney, came over to join me in the bath bomb creating. Due to the wonderful person she is, she brought some essential oils and more flippin' cream of tartar.

We got started by adding all of the dry ingredients, which were weirdly heavy (that's the best way to describe it).

A little mixy mixy and then we separated it into three bowls, for three different scents. Because we halved the recipe, we planned on four bath bombs. So we decided on two cinnamon, one peppermint and one falling leaves (which apparently is an essential oil scent). We added the 2 teaspoons of olive oil that the tutorial called for, but it wasn't nearly enough. I think it meant 2 tablespoons...but we just guessed the amount until we could squish it together a little bit.

Color Me Mine

As we were mixing and following the tutorial, I realized that all of these bath bombs would end up kinda boring if they didn't have any color. I couldn't let it go, so we went to the store to grab some food coloring.

After the detour to Linn's (no big deal, just hit all of the grocery stores in Cedar in an afternoon), we got back to our bath bombs. Sidney put orange in the falling leaves, and attempted purple with the cinnamon. I put red in the peppermint, and tried to make stripes later on.

Shaping with Cookie Cutters

Sidney had the brilliant idea of using cookie cutters to put the bath bombs into shapes, instead of using an ice cube tray. (Why didn't I think of that?)

I used a candy shaped cutter for the peppermint. I spooned in the mixture and packed it down really tightly, layer by layer. Halfway full, I made stripes with the food coloring. Then, I made stripes on the top with food coloring as well.

Due to the nature of a bath bomb, the condensed food coloring made the bath bomb fizzle. I was worried at first, but it was fine. I was just determined to have a colorful bath! Though, I did think that it was a possibility I would appear to be bathing in blood...sorry, that's creepy. Moving on.

Sidney used the gingerbread man cookie cutter and the house cookie cutter. Christmas isn't too far away, right? She also formed standard bath bomb balls with her hands. She was so much better at forming those than me and I couldn't figure out why. Also, we did occasionally have to spray some water on the mixtures to make them stick adequately.

Final Results

They all turned out pretty cute! The fact that they are DIY, didn't mean they turned out perfect and professional, but they were definitely worth it.

Now, we have to wait 24 hrs for the bath bombs to sit in their molds, and another 24 hrs for them to dry out of their molds. I didn't realize there was so much waiting involved! At first, I wasn't sure why they had to be left out, but now that it has been a few of hours, they are hardening and taking wonderful shape.

I will update this post, once the bath bombs have settled and I have actually tried one out! I'm so excited. This will be so much better than a Harry Potter bath, I just know it.

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Stay Tuned! Fizzle On!

(above: a picture Sidney took without my knowledge; hard at work with that food coloring!)

Update!

Hey! I actually tried out one of my bath bombs. I tried the peppermint one. The bath bombs kind of fell apart when I took them out of their molds...but they still worked.

The thing that would have made my bath a lot better is if I had a nicer tub (preferably adept at fitting a tall person). But other than that, I enjoyed it. The bath was minty and a cool color. Plus it made my skin feel smooth.