Bath Bombs and Farmers Markets

We are so excited for our first farmers’ market in the San Diego area!  We will be at the Sikes Adobe Farmers’ Market across the street from Westfield North County in Escondido tomorrow, Sunday Feb 28.  So if you're in the area, come on by!  We will be selling some things we haven’t yet put on the website -- hydrosols, wreaths, and lavender bundles -- along with soap, neck and eye pillows and sachets.  

And bath bombs -- we will be selling bath bombs -- the wonderful, yet simple way to turn your bath into a lovely, scented, alka seltzer experience.  Besides the fun of bath bombs, they are incredibly simple to make.  Well, kindof.  The ingredients are simple -- baking soda, citric acid, and a spray bottle filled with witch hazel and essential oils.  But the tricky part is getting the right amount of liquid in there.  Too little and the bombs will crumple; too much and the chemical reaction starts and the bombs start expanding.  My first attempt went wonderfully -- and afterwards I thought making these would be a piece of cake, but since then it’s taken a bit of practice and some globby mis-shapen bombs (that will become my own personal stash) before I was able to figure out the ratio.  So if you’d like to give this a try, please find a recipe below that I use from the teachsoap.com website. I have made a few adjustments to this recipe -- for instance I put the essential oils into the witch hazel spray and I use a meat baller to shape small bombs. I’ve also experimented with including epsom salts and coconut oil in the bombs, with varying degrees of success -- but this is a great basic recipe that you can use for your own experimenting.  (I will put a few notes in parenthesis below to share lessons learned or suggestions)


Teachsoap.com's Basic Bath Bomb Recipe

Gather your ingredients:

• 1 part Citric Acid

• 2 parts Baking Soda

• Witch Hazel

• Coloring of your choice (I used both rose clay and liquid colorants and the clay worked better by far, giving the bombs a beautiful muted pink shade)

• Fragrance Oil of your choice (I have used both lavender and rose geranium.  Both are nice but I like the lavender a little better)
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• Dome Shaped Mold (You can also use a meatballer for a smaller size)

Directions

1. BLEND BLEND BLEND BLEND the citric acid and baking soda – this step is super important – if you don’t blend well, you end up with a grainy bomb. We actually use a mixer on our larger batches. (I use both a whisk and my hands)

2. Once you’ve blended really well, add your colorant. Dry pigments or a specialty bath fizzy colorant like La Bombs work best – don’t add too much though – the color shows up once you add the witch hazel.

3. Add fragrance oils to your personal nose preference. (Again, I just add this to the witch hazel)

4. Now, this is the difficult part. Spritz (with a squirt bottle) the witch hazel onto your batch while stirring with the other hand. When your batch sticks together when squished, you need to start putting it in molds – time is of the essence. If you wait too long, the mixture will get hard. If you spritz too much, the mixture will be too wet and “grow” (start the fizzing reaction) on you. (I give it 5 squirts at a time and then mix really well before I squirt again.  The mixture starts to look a bit like fake snow and feels a little colder for some reason when it’s ready for molding.)  

5. Put the bombs in molds – wait a few minutes and tap them out. Let them air dry for 3 or 4 hours and voila! Wonderful, hard bath bombs. The harder you pack the bath bombs, the more dense, heavy, and durable bomb you will get. ​​

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