Good Stinks-Bath Bomb Fizzies!

My great grandfather used to always ask for the same cologne for Christmas every year.  It made it easy for my grandpa to shop for him, plus he always smelled good.  As my grandpa used to say, he was giving him "good stinks."

Well, for group craft night last week, we did some of our own good stinks.  These were fairly quick and easy projects, but since we did so many, I am splitting this into a couple posts.  Today's post: bath bomb fizzies!

Now, as I was looking for a recipe online for this project, I discovered that everyone has a different recipe. Some people use corn starch, some people use borax, some people use stuff I can't even pronounce.  The common ingredients in all the recipes were: baking soda, citric acid, and oil.  Also, the ratio of baking soda to citric acid was always 2:1.  You should know that citric acid is very difficult to find in large quantities; most people order it online, but we eventually found some with the spices in a local co-op store. You can also find smaller quantities with the canning supplies in a few grocery stores.

So here is the recipe:

2 cups Baking Soda
1 cup Citric Acid
1/2 cup Corn Starch
5 tbsp oil (olive oil, grapeseed oil, basically any light oil)
10-12 drops scented/essential oil (I used soothing lavender)
5-10 drops vitamin E oil
Food coloring

First, you have to mix the dry ingredients together.  So, mix up the baking soda, citric acid, and corn starch.  In a separate container, mix the wet ingredients.  Now, this is where some people use borax, because the food coloring will not disperse unless you have an emulsifier (sp?).  However, we did not have borax, and the food coloring still eventually dispersed...it just came out looking more speckled.  So it is still do-able.

Now here is the fun part: mix the two together.  With your hands.  I tried a spoon, and it didn't work nearly as well, and also it was not nearly as fun.  As it mixes, it should end up with the consistency of wet sand.  So, if you pick it up and squish it, it will kind of harden, but also will crumble apart.  Now you are ready!

Some people suggest that you grease the mold with oil before packing in the mixture; it did it both with and without the greasing, and both ways worked fine.  I used a soap mold I found at hobby lobby, and an ice cream scoop.  Both of those worked fine as well.

Now, for the packing.  This is tricky, because you have to pack the mixture super tight.  Pour some in, squish it down, pour some more in, squish it down.  I used a lot of elbow grease to pack it in super tight. If you don't pack it in tight, it will end up being very crumbly.  So basically, when you think you are done packing, do it again.

Then, let it sit in the molds for AT LEAST 1/2 hour.  You may then pop the bombs out.  Let them sit and dry for 3 days.  If you fiddle with them too much before then, they will crumble and you will be sad.  However, know that even crumbled fizzies will still fizz when you put the mixture in the bath.

And ta-da!  You are done.  Below are a couple of pictures of the mass of fizzies we made for craft night (this recipe makes a big batch-perfect for gift-giving!).  Enjoy!!!!

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