Thoughts

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!

I had the toilet dream again.

It has happened too often to be a fluke – it must be a sign.

Obviously I am pre-ordained to spend a significant portion of my life in the bathroom.

The toilet dream goes like this: in my dream, I am suddenly looking for a toilet. There are various reasons, though usually in the dream, I simply need to use the bathroom.

So I find one, and there is always something significant about it. Sometimes the stall is too small and I can get in but not get out. Sometimes it’s overflowing or especially dirty. Especially large or open with no stalls.

And then I attempt to – ahem – use the toilet. To no satisfaction. Afterward, I need to find another toilet, ad nauseum.

Until the pattern repeats itself enough times that it registers in the conscious part of my brain –

YOU NEED TO USE THE BATHROOM. FOR REAL.

Last night, the dream went like this – I was doing research. On toilets. The first set were in a sprawling public bathroom. Most of them were completely useless. Broken doors, broken bowls, paper hanging out. Stalls too small or too open. The usual. One stall was occupied by David Bowie, who was working on a new tune. One of my companions asked if he found the environment inspiring, and he said that finding inspiration in filth was his specialty. Sadly, I never saw his face.

The second part of the dream consisted of my doing a survey of a ritzy neighborhood. At first I was just finding more of these run down public restrooms. Then I decided to give up on that and look for port-a-potties. I figured there had to be some somewhere – aren’t there always in a fancy neighborhood? As soon asked as answered, and soon I was walking into one. But then it promptly cut in half, vertically, with the side falling down as if on a hinge. Time to give up and wake up.

After waking up and taking care of business, I went back to sleep and dreaming a magical, mysterious scene that would fit right in with the NaNoWriMo story I am currently serializing over at JukePop (Sarah Elizabeth Jones, Time Traveller). And promptly forgot every detail of it. Thank you so much, Sandman.

“Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh, and the greatness which does not bow before children.” – Kahlil Gibran

After I received my order of beeswax from Mountain Rose, I realized I was going to be able to make a lot with it. A pound of beeswax goes a long way for a small family! Today we made homemade vapor rub, and early this summer we are going to make a big batch of lip balm with Nana to share with all my sisters.

I wanted to make two variations of vapor rub – a strong one with camphor for the Chief, and a mild one with lavender for the babies. Camphor is very strong and I don’t want to use it for the little ones.

I used 8 ounces of olive oil, about 2 ounces of beeswax. I warmed the oil over a double boiler (actually a cheap pot of water and a small bowl I picked up at the thrift store.) The oil goes in the bowl over the gently bowling water, so the oil doesn’t burn. Next time I make this, I want to use oil infused with some kind of mint to add extra strength to it – I know we will have a garden full of mint this summer. I melted the beeswax gently in the oil, and took it off the heat as soon as it was melted.

I poured the wax/oil into two tubs – repurposed from butter tubs. A real herbalist probably wouldn’t reuse old plastic butter tubs, but what can I say? They were the right size.

Then I added the oil. I used 40 drops of eucalyptus in each tub. I added 30 drops of lavender to the children’s tub and 30 drops of camphor to the Chief’s tub. I encourage anyone who wants to try this to experiment and see what works for you. Especially for kids, less is more.

The finished products smell really good!!!

I used:
Available from Mountain Rose:
White Camphor Oil
Eucalyptus Oil
Lavender Oil
Beeswax
Olive Oil (I bought mine on clearance at the grocery store)
Repurposed:
Butter tubs – metal tins or glass jars would be better

If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy the latest recipe, for herbal cough drops you can make in your kitchen.

I am putting together a kit for those who would like to try to make this themselves without the hassle of buying all the ingredients seperately – if you’d like to be put on the waiting list for the kit, fill out the form on my product page. The first run will be a short run and most likely limited to those on the waiting list. Or join my email list to the right – you’ll receive my FREE e-book in December and I’ll be sure to let you know when new products are launched.