Bath Bombs that Really Bombed

Nowadays, bath bombs are all the rage. My 3 year old wants to use them in her bath, and I don't even know where she heard about them!  I never buy them - I love them, but I can't justify that kind of expense! Most that I see sell for around $3!

Anyway, I had some peppermint-lavender scented baking soda left over from an unsuccessful batch of shower melts that I wanted to use up (I couldn't just toss it!) and homemade bath bombs seemed like a perfect way to do so. Plus, I know the cost per bomb is well below $3!!

I found a recipe for magnesium bath bombs that used epsom salts, corn starch, baking soda, and citric acid as the powders and went with that. It also called for a myriad of oils, including magnesium oil and 5 or 6 for fragrance. I opted to skip the fragrance oils since my baking soda was already scented and went with just coconut oil, not having any magnesium oil on hand.

The total oil for the recipe was around 2 Tbs. I added 1 Tbs, very slowly, and mixed it in. It was still a little wet, though, and wouldn't release from the molds. No big deal. They don't need to look pretty just for me to use them, so I rolled them up in my hands and set them on a plate.  If you look closely at my picture, you might be able to see a bit of the oil glistening on them, lol.

By the time I had run some bath water, they had started to grow in size so that when I touched them, they had a fluffy feel to them - a bit like cotton candy. But when I dropped one in the water, it fizzed just like it was supposed to! WIN!

After another try, with just 1.5 tsp of oil, I did get them to mold, but these, too, kept expanding and wouldn't hold their shape.

The result:
Ultimately, my bath bombs bombed - they would not hold their mold and had, essentially, no shelf life. The unused ones doubled in size and fizzled out in about 20 minutes for the first batch, and a few hours for my best batch. The ones that I tossed in right after making fizzed beautifully and made the water like heaven - really nice smelling and ultra moisturizing. 

Definitely getting closer, but not quite there yet!

What do you love most about bath bombs?  Comment below!

Be sure to check out my fizzy video on my facebook page!
https://www.facebook.com/greenchemistsoap/videos/558115291190486/