A more luxurious bath bomb

I order a lot of 1 ounce size bottles of fragrance oils. They're inexpensive and great for testing out new scents and blends. Alas, I don't always love every one of them. Everyone does have different tastes after all. I end up with so many little bottles of fragrance oils that I feel pretty "meh" about, that I usually end up just using them to make bath fizzies with. (Provided they aren't actually awful!) It's a good way to clean out the soap supplies closet. :)

 Now I've always made my bath fizzies with a basic starter sort of recipe of just baking soda, citric acid and a few spritzes of witch hazel. It's easy and they always turned out well, but the recipe felt kind of cheap to me. Like cheating. And when people would ask me, what do these do? I'd find myself always trying to make them sound a lot better than they really were. Well, um, they fizz and smell good, and there's baking soda in there so that's good..... 

So finding a better recipe has always been on my to do list, while I am vegging out on soapy internet research. What could I add to these things to give them more nourishing qualities (and, yes, label appeal) without greatly increasing the cost to make them? I searched and searched and searched. I bought bath bombs from other Etsy sellers and bath stores, and tested em out for myself. I won't say that wasn't enjoyable research. ;) 

I ended up trying a few different recipes with butters and oils that turned out to be either entirely too mushy, gloppy, greasy, or just plain unimpressive. But now I think I've finally found a keeper. I picked an ingredient here and there from past batches, lined my measurements up with another, and eureka! 

Moisturizing and pretty!

In the end, I chose to add cocoa butter, olive oil, honey, epsom salts, and corn starch in small amounts to my original plain jane baking soda and citric acid mixture. I went with cocoa butter, olive oil and honey (yum!) for their incredible moisturizing properties, epsom salt for it's stress relief and cleansing soakabilities, and corn starch to keep the butters and oils from feeling too greasy.  

I made my first batch up this morning and can't wait to try em out!  

 I wanted to use an oatmeal honey in combination with some ground oats, but I don't have a scent like that, if you can believe it! So I picked a fragrance I already had, from Nature's Garden called Warm Vanilla Sugar instead, and a shimmery honey beige mica colorant. It's a dupe fragrance, with just enough musk not to be overwhelming. I'm not much of a vanilla fan, but they do smell pretty nice, and should have some good staying power in the bath. It seemed to be a good choice considering the new ingredients too (it made me think of the golden colors of the butter, oil and honey).

I also mixed a little of the mica with some epsom salts to put in the bottom of my molds to give it a real warm vanilla sugar look on the tops when they were popped out.

 What do you think? What do you look for in a bath fizzy: fragrance, appearance, or ingredients?

Pretty pictures!

My friend Mindy was kind enough to take a few pictures of some of my soaps on Friday for use on a flyer and possibly Etsy sometime in the near future. They turned out so beautiful and professional looking, I almost felt like it wasn't even my stuff! Have a look!

All-natural hot process charcoal with tea tree and lavender essential oils

Soap "sampler" bundles

All-natural cold process soap bundle in Cinnamon & Clove, Oatmeal & Honey,
and Grapfruit, Lime & Orange

All-natural hot process Peppermint Chocolate ripple 

A hot process bundle including Spearmint, Peppermint Chocolate ripple
and "The Lime in the Coconut"

Honeydew Pear, Cotton Candy, Tropical Blast, and Hot Pink Pomegranate
whipped shea butters

Unfortunately the whipped shea butter didn't really appreciate the 95-degree heat and crazy humidity and went pretty flat on us. :\

Food In Soap series: Coconut Milk

I have recently fallen in love with shampoo soap, aka washing your hair with a bar of soap! It's a crazy concept, I know, and I shied away from it at first. When I made my first batch of Tea Tree Oil shampoo soap, I had absolutely no plans to use it and figured few others would be interested either, except maybe dudes. 'Cause, you know, dudes can get away with putting little thought or effort into their hair. My guy doesn't even use conditioner! *gasp* 

(In case you're wondering, you lather the soap up on top of your head, just like you would on a washcloth or in your hands!)

Food In Soap series: Pumpkin

I've starting putting aside some soap recipes that include different kinds of food (and beverages!) because, well, mostly I like the idea of it. And some do lend some nice properties to soap too! So I am starting a little "Food In Soap" series to show you what I am up to, and how it turns out!

I decided to start with a hot process batch using pumpkin. For it I bought a can of pumpkin, not fresh. I'd have no idea where to find one this time of year, besides the canned stuff is just easier. And cheaper I imagine. I checked the ingredients to make sure I was just getting straight up pumpkin, no spices or sugars or additives. 

I used a different recipe for this batch, using only lard and olive oil. My required distilled water amount was 12 ounces, so I used 10 ounces of the pumpkin plus two ounces of water to thin it out a bit. I added my lye to this mixture. It stunk. I've learned by now that is pretty well expected when you add lye to anything besides just plain water. So be ready. (Coffee is the worst by far!) 

New coloring system has arrived!

My pricey new coloring system came in yesterday, twelve highly concentrated colors in tiny bottles, an instruction booklet, and charts for ranges and blends of colors. Whoa. It was a little intimidating. I've read through it all now, and am excited to give it a try.