Have you ever wanted to make a simple, natural bath care product that makes a fantastic herbal Christmas gift? Yeah, me, too =) My friend Joei came over and taught us how to make Bath Bombs yesterday and I am so excited to share her very simple recipe with you today.
The ingredients are few: The ingredients are linked to a great place on-line where you can buy them, but you can buy all of these things locally, too
Baking Soda
(You CAN buy this on-line but you should buy it locally unless you are going to buy a huge amount and you were going to place an order anyway in which case you can buy it here.)
Citric Acid buy here
Witch Hazel buy here
Essential Oils as desired for scent or for helpful qualities (We used Peppermint, Orange, Lavender, and Lemongrass)
Natural color as desired (We used a green oxide, turmeric for yellow – not too much or it will stain, and paprika for pink)
Also, Joei added Himalayan Pink Salt to add more softness to your water and for gorgeous sparkly color.
First step – gather your ingredients all together before you get started. Citric Acid will be the hardest to find. Joei found hers at a local natural grocery store. If you can’t source it locally, try Mountain Rose. They have it in 1lb and 5lb quantities for very reasonable prices (1lb is more than enough for a nice batch like we made, but 5lbs would be great if you want to make a whole bunch of them and give them to everyone you know.
Second step – mix the dry ingredients. Have a nice big bowl and mix together one part citric acid to two parts baking soda. Mix thoroughly. We did four separate bowls so we could make four different scent recipes.
After the dry ingredients are thoroughly mixed, you can add color and scent. We did four different recipes.
The Recipes
Joei made a straight peppermint oil bath bomb with a pinch of paprika for pink coloring. She added peppermint oil til the scent was clear but not pungent, then mixed it thoroughly. Once the scent and color were mixed in, Joei added the pink salt for dimension. This was an EXCELLENT recipe for Christmas gifts, and Joei used a mini gingerbread silicon pan to shape hers (we’re almost there).
Olivia made a peppermint-orange oil blend. It smelled lovely and sweet, and she used heart-shaped molds. She used a pinch of turmeric and a pinch of paprika for an orange color. Be careful to not be too liberal with turmeric as it can stain if the concentration is too high – Olivia’s fingers were a bit yellow afterwards.
My mother (JenniFaye) made gorgeous yellow bombs with turmeric for color and lemongrass for smell. These smelled HEAVENLY.
And finally, I made mine a lavender-peppermint oil blend. I used a green oxide I had on hand to lightly color them and molded them in Christmas tree molds that Joei brought with her. These were so cute and would make wonderful stocking stuffers. Next time we make them, I’d like to add very finely ground lavender buds to the mix for dimensions. Readers of my blog know that I am a lover of lavender and use it with my children all the time. It is such a useful and gentle oil.
Third Step – once you have thoroughly mixed in any color, scent, and add-ins you want to use with your bombs, it’s time to activate them. The way Joei did this was brilliant and made the recipe so simple. She filled a spray bottle with witch hazel. Witch Hazel is as thin as water so you can use any ordinary spray bottle for this, just label it with a marker like Joei did. Then lightly spray your mixture and begin to knead it. You want the mixture to be like sand that is *just* wet enough to mold – no more. Err on the dry side – you can add more moisture but you can not take any away. It will fizz a tiny bit when you first spray it, just mix that in. Once it is the right consistency, begin to mold it right away – you don’t want it to dry again before you get it into the molds. If you did more than one recipe, as we did, work one bowl at a time.
Fourth Step – Now it’s time to mold. Scoop it up in your fingers and press it firmly into the molds. You don’t need to grease the mold or anything like that because the mixture will dry all the way. I do strongly recommend the nice silicone molds – they turned out so well. We let them dry for an hour before popping them out of the molds to air dry more before bagging them. If you don’t have any silicone baking molds and don’t want to buy any, a plain old muffin tin will work just fine – let them dry a little long and if you need to, slide a butter knife around the round shape – they will slide right out.
To use the bath bombs, drop one large or a few small into your warm bath. They will fizz and sputter and soften your water and all the goodness of the essential oils will go into your bath. Delightful. If you use gentle oils they are nice for children, too. Julius was thrilled to have one in his bath and he is very difficult to coax into taking a bath.
Thank you, Joei, for this fun idea and sharing the great day with us! I hope everyone enjoys her recipe and has a great time making homemade herbal Christmas presents for everyone they love!