coffee

5 days of rain here and my attempt at bath bombs are now smashed up (yeah it felt good to beat those things into bits lol) and blended with salts to become "bubbling bath salts". One tip I did try that really worked was to put the dry ingredients into a giant gallon ziploc and then the liquid and mush it around by hand. I did get a nice sand dough kind of feeling out of it and no slsa bits flying around. It was all nice until my molded drying pretties started to party with the humidity and then it was all over. I did find many references to that 3/2 or 2/1 for the baking soda/citric ratio...a big chemical explanation somewhere about how many soda molecules it took to react properly with the citric molecules -I went with the 2/1 ratio on mine.

Hi, I had tried many recipes and kept getting variables on texture until another crafter sent me some stearic acid to play with. It thickens lotions up and you can adjust the amount to get just the thickness you want. Anyway, here is my basic recipe that I use in a squeeze boston round: Lotion WATER PHASE water 73% glycerin or honey 2% (using this really makes a difference in my lotions but if you drop it add that 2% back to the water part) OIL PHASE Stearic acid 2% (varies in some recipes I see up to 4%) Oils of choice 17% (I love liquid oils like soybean or rice bran) Ewax 4% LAST PHASE preservative 1% FO 1% Heat water phase to boiling, set aside Heat oil phase in seperate container so ingredients are melted (stearic takes a little time) Mix oils and water and emulsify with a stick blender (some use their counter top mixers on low to mix lotions) or whisk until the milky blend becomes more of a half and half or cream texture. As lotion cools add last phase and mix well. pour into bottles-will be runny but sets up nicely by the next day. The stearic is the amount you can play with and what you add/take away to get the texture you want adjust that amount in your liquid oils. sorry if I rambled...