Bath bombs make great gifts for both men and women and can be made to almost any specification. Colourants are available in either liquid and powdered forms and once you have the primary colours they are easy to blend into your own shades. Feel free to add other ingredients to the bombs to liven them up. Lavender buds and rose petals look lovely but you should only use dried flowers otherwise they may start to rot and will reduce the shelf-life of the bombs.
For this recipe you will need.
- 60g citric acid
- 120g Bicarbonate of soda
- 10 drops of essential oil
- 1 tsp of water.
- Mould
- Fork
- Bowl
You need to find a very fine grade of citric acid as some can be too coarse. Coarse citric acid wont fizz as well as the fine grade and can leave a gritty feel in the bath.
Mix the citric acid and bicarbonate thoroughly in a bowl using a fork. You may wish to wear goggles for this part, as if either of the powders get in to your eyes it will be painful.
Add the drops of essential oil and mix thoroughly with a fork. Oils which have a relaxing scent such as lavender, geranium and rose work well in bath bombs. Be wary of using very sweet scents such as may chang as they can be overpowering and sickly in the hot water.
Add 1 teaspoon of water. This will cause the bicarbonate and acid to fizz violently. Mix the water in quickly and thoroughly with the fork. You need to work fast here to prevent the water from forming a crust on the top of the mixture. The mixture should have consistency of damp sand, in that it sticks together and can be moulded. Another way to check the mixture is ready is to listen carefully to the bowl. If there is only very slight hissing the mixture will be fine but if the fizzing is still quite loud you have added too much water. The overly wet mixture wont set properly and you will need to start again.
Once the mixture is ready it needs to be put straight in to the moulds. The mould you use can be either one really big one or lots of little ones, the choice is entirely yours. The mould needs to be made from rigid plastic as silicone moulds don't have the strength to hold the bombs in shape. Plastic ice-cube trays make great mini moulds.
Press the bath bomb mixture firmly in to the moulds using your fingers. The more you compact the bombs the better they will hold their shape and the longer they will last when dropped into the bath. Leave the bombs in the mould for at least 1 hour for little bombs and two hours for large ones. Tip the bombs out and leave them over night to set hard, they are then ready to use.
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