Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Valentine's Day bath bombs


I'm so psyched that I stumbled on this recipe for fizzy bath bombs. I did this project with my gift-making class this year and it was just a tad too fussy to do with kids. You had to carefully spritz the wet mixture into the dry mixture and then stop at the exact right moment... if the dry mixture got too wet, the citric acid (which is what makes the bomb fizz) starts to react and then the whole thing is a bust. A dud. It's totally tricky. But this was sooooo easy. I guess citric acid doesn't react with oil, so, you can just mix it all up together no prob. We are making these for teachers for Valentine's Day. I hope they travel well. And we tested them out of course... they were very bubbly and fizzy and exciting for the little people. We scented them with lemon and lavendar essential oil... inspiring and calming... that's good for teachers, right? Though rose would probably match more with the pink. We also packed them in tight to a 1/4 measuring cup so they're kind of like big pink tablets. But you could just shape them yourself into balls or whatever you want. You Austin folks can buy citric acid at Central Market. Otherwise you can easily buy it on the internets... and it's found some places as Sour Salt in the kosher foods section. Also, we did have a few tbsp. of coconut oil so we made it with that the first time. Then we wanted to make more so I tried using grapeseed oil. It seems to work great.... Here's hoping they 'set' appropriately and are ready for school in the morning (Bruno's last school day of the week). Anyway, without further ado, the recipe:
Bodacious Bath Bombs (found at www.pinemeadows.net)
Ingredients:

2 tbsp
citric acid

2 tbsp
Cornstarch

1/4 cup
baking soda

1/4 tsp
fragrance or essential oil

3-6 drops
liquid color

3 tbsp
coconut oil(any emollient oil will work, coconut works best.)
Put all of your dry ingredients in a bowl and mix them together. Put your emollient oil in a microwave safe plastic mixing bowl and heat if it is not in a liquid state, then add your fragrance or essential oils and liquid color. Slowly incorporate your liquid ingredients with your dry ingredients and mix well. Take some of the mixture and form ping pong size balls. Balls should be placed on a sheet of waxed paper for about 24 hours. Place your bath bombs into a small candy cup. Store in a closed container until you are ready to use them. To use drop 1-2 balls under warm running bath water.

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