Aromatic bath bombs
Who doesn’t love a big, colorful, scented bath ball that fizzes wildly when you drop it into the tub? Bath bombs and fizzies have become the bath-time rage with both kids and adults, and they are incredibly easy to make.
These popular bath bombs can be costly in specialty bed-and-bath stores but they are relatively inexpensive to make. Most of the ingredients are found around the house, and the only real costs are a few essential oils and a dozen or so silicone molds, which are available on the internet. The bombs average out to about $2 apiece, less if you plan on making them in quantity. These fizzies are not only fun to use at home, they make terrific gifts—and can even be color or scent themed for different holidays.
BOMBS AWAY!
The following basic recipe makes 12 bombs, so be sure you’ve purchased enough molds to accommodate them. The batter hardens quickly, so you can’t mold the bombs in smaller batches.
Aromatic bath bombs
Ingredients:
• 4 ounces Epsom salts
• 8 ounces baking soda
• 4 ounces cornstarch
• 4 ounces citric acid
• 21/2 tablespoons coconut or olive oil
• 1 tablespoon water
• 2 teaspoons essential oil, your choice
• 4 to 6 drops of food coloring
• 12 to 18 silicone molds
In a large bowl mix the dry ingredients together so there are no clumps. Place the wet ingredients in a jar and shake them up. Add the liquid to the dry ingredients in slow, tiny increments. This is really critical—you don’t want the mixture to start fizzing prematurely if the baking soda starts reacting to the citric acid. Stop blending and wait if fizzing begins. The finished mixture should just barely clump together. Now quickly press the mixture into the molds, because it will start to harden almost immediately. The bombs should take approximately one day to dry, a bit longer if your molds have intricate details. Test one bomb in the tub and watch it explode into colorful bubbles. Wrap each bomb in cellophane and prepare to hand them out, perhaps with a small tag describing their scent.
CUSTOMIZED SCENTS
You can add or mix essential oils so that the bombs give off different scents to match your tastes or to capture the essence of a time of year. Each batch should need about 2 teaspoons of essential oil, less if you choose to combine scents.
Holiday Scents: To capture the spirit of Thanksgiving or the winter holidays, try combining cinnamon oil with clove, cocoa with peppermint, coffee or nutmeg with vanilla, or cedar with any berry oil.
Summery Scents: Any lighter, “green” oils would work here, but especially lemon balm, lemon verbena, bergamot orange, bee balm, lavender, sage, or fennel in a blue-green bomb.
Autumn Scents: Capture the season of bonfires and spooky nights with licorice, sandalwood, cedar, cocoa, or juniper in an orange bomb.
Exotic Scents: Create a sense of allure with the oils of jasmine, vanilla, ylang-ylang, neroli, frankincense, myrrh, or patchouli, perhaps in medium purple or amber.
Spa Scent: Try combining the classic therapeutic scents of eucalyptus and lavender in a pastel-colored bath bomb.
Kid’s Favorites: Since very little essential oil goes into the bathwater, these fizzies should be safe for children old enough not to get water in their mouths. Try blending essential oils to make "Creamsicle bombs" (vanilla and orange), "Fudgsicle bombs" (cocoa and vanilla), "lemon fizzes" (lemon oil and lavender), or "cinna-bombs" (using cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla oils). Kids also enjoy the addition of biodegradable glitter and dried flower petals. Don’t forget to make some zany color combos, too.