Easy, Homemade Bath Bombs

They make a cute present or favour!

Remember back in high school science, when your eyes glazed over as your teacher droned on about some chemical reaction involving acids and bases? Are they glazing over now?  Well, stay with me a bit, because we're going to make homemade bath bombs together...using acids and bases!  Waaay more exciting than high school chemistry...more along the lines of the exploding volcano trick you saw at your local science fair!  And, you can make them at home for a fraction of the cost of those expensive Lush ones!

Materials (to make 8 ice cube size bath bombs)

• 1/2 cup baking soda
• 1/4 cup, or approximately 100 g citric acid (you can find this in the canning section of some grocery stores, or at Bulk Barn) 
• 1 tsp oil (I used Olive oil, but you can use any oil that you're okay putting on your body) 
• Update: I regret adding oil.  I'm pretty sure my daughter is coming out of the bath slightly pinker because the oil is making the food colouring "stick" to her, and to my bathtub!  These bath fizzies can be made just as easily without the oil.  Just add the food colouring to a few drops of water and sprinkle it in instead.
• Water
• Food colouring 
• Essential oil (optional)
• Mold (I used a silicone ice tray, but you can use Christmas ornaments to make giant balls, or anything you have on hand) 

Method

1. Mix baking soda and citric acid together well using a whisk.



2. In a separate bowl, whisk the oil together with the food colouring of your choice. 

   

   It looks a little Dexter slash CSI crime scene-y now, but don't worry, it'll lighten!

   I used 10 drops of red food colouring in mine, but you can use natural dyes/teas, or omit the colour altogether.
3. Add in a few drops of your essential oil if you want a nice-smelling bath.  I didn't put any in mine because I wanted to save my precious lavender oil for my daughter's feet (can we talk about how she has been waking up in a WAY better mood lately...ever since I started putting lavender oil on her feet before bed!).
4. Add the oil to the dry ingredients while whisking.
   
   
   You might see your dry ingredients start to bubble, but don't worry, just keep whisking.  As you whisk, the dye will spread out more evenly in your mixture.
5. Sprinkle water into the mixture while whisking. 
   
   You want the consistency of clumpy, wet sand. 
   
   I ended up adding about 1 tbsp of water.  Some recipes instruct you to put the water in a spray bottle so you can mist your mixture while whisking, but let's be honest, that's too much work.
6. Spoon the mixture into your molds. 
   
   Press it into the mold very firmly with your fingers.  Don't be shy.  Really get in there.
   
7. At this point, do not leave your mixture to tend to your whining child.  The mixture will start to clump in the bowl, and it'll be harder to put into your molds.  I speak from experience.
8. Leave mold to dry for an hour or so, or longer if you're using larger molds.  Don't stack them right away like I did.  You'll end up with fused bath bombs!
9. Pop them out and drop them into your next bath!

My daughter loves putting these into her bath.  The bath bombs fizzed for about 45 seconds!  I recommend making many of these, because there will probably be requests for more.

Let us know how your bath bombs turned out!