bath bomb recipe?

[Lorrie]

Ok, I have heard you guys talk about them long enough. I am looking for a recipe for these. I would also prefer something that gives lots of bubbles. I was given some but there wasn't any bubbles.:sad2:

[Landa]

1 c. Baking Soda

.5 c cornstarch

.5 c fine sea salt

.5 c SLSA

1.5 TBLS T.R.O.

1 TBLS Fragrance

1 c citric acid

I mix all the wet ingredients together and then do dry alone except for the citric acid. After I get that wet sand then I add the citric and MOLD,MOLD,MOLD...hehehe

I hope this helps. I got this from shannonj.

[Lorrie]

Landa,

Have you done this recipe w/ alot of humidity?

And thanks for sharing with me!

[Landa]

Earlier in the summer, I used this recipe and made like 30 in about 3 days. It is so humid here that I havent been able to duplicate it since. I think I am going to wait until it gets cool here.

[hawaiiansun]

what is SLSA

[Melly]

Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate

Its the stuff that makes the bubbles

[Landa]

SLSA

(Sodium Lauryl Sulphoacetate)

[Katesmom]

What is TRO??

[Landa]

Turkey Red Oil...known as sulfated castor oil, is miscible in water and emulsifies other oils in water

[Lorrie]

Landa,

Is there any other hints you can give me about this recipe? I know that alot of people have a hard time with bath bombs.

Thanks for sharing this recipe with me!

[Landa]

LOL nope. Sometime it works out and sometimes it doesnt. Melly might be able to help you.

[RobinInOR]

BBs are totally frustrating, hope you have a lot of hair to tear out

I've made them soft, I've made them hard. I've never had them start to fizz or grow big though, we don't have high humidity here. Regular bath bombs just fizz, they don't have SLSa.

Only tips I can think of:

1. Mix in the citric acid last. Water + baking soda + citric is the fizz, even water from the air. So if you mix it in last you'll have less of a chance of setting it off.

2. Put your SLSa in the container first, then add the other dry ingredients on top. Then when you mix, the SLSa won't fly around as much. It's pretty fine, you might want to wear a mask, or at least hold your breath while you're measuring.

Then some miscellaneous thoughts:

3. You can play with the baking soda/citric acid proportions. Chemically I seem to remember you only need 3 baking sodas to 2 citric acids. I've seen recipes 2 baking sodas to 1 citric acid as well, and this one is 1:1. Not sure if adding more citric acid causes problems or not.

4. Weighing ingredients can give you more control. If you can make them one time but not another, try using weight instead of volume measurements.

5. You use TRO cuz it's soluable in water, and you don't get an oily ring. You could probably sub in other oils, or even an oil/PS80 blend, or a PEG oil (they're created to be water soluable - I've forgotten what PEG stands for, but I've seen PEG olive oil esters before)

[Lorrie]

Wow, thanks for the indepth explanation Robin.

[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.

[Melly]

I make the fizzing kind, not the bubbling kind, I have a think against SLSA now, probably because I decided to smell it the first time I opened a container of it, I really should have paid attention in high school science.

What Robin said is perfect, I mix my dry stuff without the citric in a large bowl, sifting them all well first. Then im mix my oil , water and FO in a jar, I add a small amount of borax to this to emulsify. I mix my wet (castor oil and sweet almond oil with a touch of water ) with my dry, then when its thourghly mixed I add in my citric, and mix like mad again, I use christmas ornys as molds, overpack them, squeeze tightly for about 10 - 20 seconds, leave it in the whole mold for about 5 minutes, take the top half of the mold off , leave it in the bottom half for another 5, when I have more molds, i'll leave them in there even longer, prevents flat bottoms. If your mix becomes to dry to mold, add a small drizzle of oil and stir in in quicly , DO NOT ADD MORE WATER. I leave them in my workshop with the dehumidifer to dry overnight. I can drop my bathbombs on the floor from shoulder hieght and they will not break, they are rock hard, but fizz wonderfully in the tub, they do not feel overly oily while you are soaking (i HATE oily bath water) but leave your skin feeling wonderfully soft and conditioned.