The Fun Begins - Making Bath Bombs

The first inexpensive activity that Little Bird and I decided to partake of this half term, was to make some homemade bath bombs.  This fitted in well with my new natural beauty obsession and it was something that both Little Bird and I had wanted to try for quite a while.  Who needs to go spend money at Lush when you can DIY?

I found a recipe that I had written down ages ago, whilst sorting through some old notebooks and realised that I had virtually all of the ingredients already in my cupboards.  Some of which were out of date for food related purposes, so they were perfect to experiment with on a first attempt.  I did have to go out and buy a 1kg bag of epsom salts for £3.99 and a small 70ml bottle of almond oil for £1.35 at the local chemist, both of which will be sufficient to make many more of these bath bombs or simply use as a relaxing bath soak.

Here's the recipe we followed.

2 Tablespoons Baking Soda/Powder
1 Tablespoon Citric Acid
1 Tablespoon Cornstarch/Cornflour
1 Tablespoon Epsom Salts
1/4 Teaspoon Castor/Almond Oil
3/4 Teaspoon Water
2 Drops of Food Colouring
6-8 Drops of Essential Oil (We used Lavender)
Dried Lavender/Petals/Herbs (for decoration)

This recipe was supposed to be sufficient to make 2 small bath bombs.

Little Bird did most of the work mixing the dry ingredients first and adding the food colouring to them. She did this by hand, wearing plastic gloves.  I mixed the oil/water/essential oil together in a separate small bowl and then this was added and mixed in bit by bit to the dry ingredients (apparently to avoid some sort of reaction with the citric acid), before the mixture was was spooned into silicone cup cake cases and tamped down firmly.

Here's a photo of the bombs after we'd finished making them.  We forgot to mix in the lavender, so added it to the top as decoration.

The bombs were then left to set for 24 hours before use.

After my visit to the allotment on Bank Holiday Monday afternoon, I tried one out in the bath. Here's a little video of one fizzing away.  (Please excuse my grunting 'yes' in answer to a question from Little Bird)

It was certainly nice and soothing on all my nettle stings and the almond oil made my skin feel lovely and soft.  They were a bit crumbly when I took them out of the silicone cases, so I might look for another recipe to try, or just make them in paper cupcake cases, so that you don't need to take them out until you use them.

They would make great homemade Christmas presents, especially if made in pretty fabric cases/wrapped in pretty tissue paper and popped into a mason jar.  I'll be interested to try some different combinations of essential oils, colours and shapes in the future.