Guest Post - Live Your Love Outloud --Bath Bombs

I'm so excited to introduce you to my final blog friend that is helping me out during my "European Vacation!" I'd love for you to welcome Heather from Live Your Love Outloud. I think you'll love her! She is sharing a project that, well...just read on and you'll see!

 

 

 

CRAFTastic. Bath Bombs that BOMBED!

HI! Wild Mama Heather Novak here. I’m visiting y'all while Cindy Lou Who is living it up on vacation. I figured I would help you all miss her even more by posting about my craftastic disaster with DIY Bath Bombs. You are welcome.

It absolutely kills me to fork over a chunk of change for something I can make myself. With better ingredients. And just the way I like it. I also love anything spa and pampering and have made scrubs and what not for eons. I am very into aromatherapy for everything and so I’m ready to tackle The Bomb. The Bath Bomb! Instead of $4 for a chemical and preservative laden bath confection, I found this recipe on Pop Sugar quite by accident. It looked so simple even I could manage it.

1 C baking soda

1/2 C cornstarch

1/2 C Epsom Salt

4T cream of tartar

3/4 T water *

2t essential oil(s) your choice

2 1/2 t oil (I used olive oil)

Directions were to mix all liquids together and all dry ingredients together separately before combining. They measured everything in ounces, so my mathphobic self had to go online and translate the ounces into cups, you’re welcome. I’m in love with the combination of peppermint and citrus, so I chose Peppermint, Bergamot, Grapefruit and Chamomile essential oils for the bath bombs. If I did these again I think I would puree mint from my garden for color instead of using dye, but for this first go around I used my Wilton color in just a green.

For starters, this is the first time I’ve thought about really ‘staging’ my ingredient pictures. Since I am a guest here at Cindy’s I want to do a supercalifragilisticexpialadocious job. I realized I might have the UGLIEST measuring cups that ever lived and I will be thrifting for cuter ones ASAP.

So here are all the pretty ingriendents. And the pretty bowls. And the mixing process.

I thought the directions messed up the water amount, as I had to add more water (and oil)

to get everything damp enough to shape and hold together. I might have been wrong. I also do not have an ornament dealio to shape perfect balls so I did muffin tins. But they wouldn’t come out. So I scooped the gunk out and made roundish shapes by hand. It is handmade, right? No need for perfection. Fragrant lumps of spa like possibility is good enough, right?

Then when I went back through the kitchen I saw to my HORROR they were all spread out.

Maybe I did add too much water/oil (about 1/2 cup extra from recipe). UGH. I think if I mixed all together

 and then waited ten or fifteen minutes...it might have gotten to a better consistency. I will try that next time instead of adding more water....which I think activated the fun too quickly. I frantically started trying cupcake tin liners, adding more baking soda....UGH.

Finally I just had to take a break and read a book (Wives Behaving Badly By Elizabeth Buchan) and eat those new Goldfish Puffs. Awesome.

I love the idea of crafting and always keep trying, but this was a potential disaster! I always picture the outcome being Martha Stewart, but it ends up, more often than not, more like FOURTH GRADER. UGH. Like my homemade sock Hobby Horse Adventure and wretched DIY body butter take 2 disaster. (I got a dermatologist involved....) But I digress.

It turned out that after mixing more baking soda in by hand, the bombs got better firmer texture. I did the quick dry of one hour in the oven at 250 degrees rather than waiting out an overnight dry time to see how it worked out. They worked out! My littles enjoyed one in their bath, and John my husband said it broke apart and acted like others I had purchased in the past. So the Pop Sugar DIY Bath Bomb went from BOMB to THE BOMB. I will be making these again SOON. Want one?

Heather

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