I saw a video online on making bath bombs and thought it might be something fun to try with my daughter. The ingredients were simple: citric acid, baking soda, Witch Hazel, food coloring and some essential oil for scent. The materials were inexpensive and Amazon (of course) had them as well as some moulds to make the job easier. I ordered the items and two days later my daughter and I tried the project out.
It was easy. We mixed the ingredients, put them in the moulds and a few minutes later we had bath bombs drying on a cookie sheet. It was so easy I suggested it to a friend of mine as a project she could have people do at an essential oil party she was having. She ordered the exact same supplies, brand and all and I brought my moulds to her house to use. And it was a disaster.
She had three parties in total and we tried everything we could to get the mixture to make bombs that would work in the moulds. Something was strange and I’ll jump ahead right now and say I still don’t know what the difference was. Same materials with the one exception of using the powdered variety of food coloring of the same brand.
We tried more liquid, less liquid, lubricating the moulds, not using food coloring and anything else we could think of but the bombs either wouldn’t hold shape, would strangely expand slowly or would stick firmly in the moulds. Ultimately I told her I was sorry for suggesting a project I had said was easy but turned out to be a failure.
Then today, another friend came over to make bath bombs at my house. She had also ordered the same exact products. I had warned her I wasn’t sure how things would work out, but I was willing to give it a try if she was. She came over and I explained the difficulties we’d had the last time and how I thought it might be how much liquid we were adding but I wasn’t sure because we’d varied that to no avail the last time.
But everything worked. It worked every time. We’d press the mixture into the moulds and it would pop right out, no waiting required. We must have made thirty bath bombs. We did have some that were a little too wet or too dry, but on the whole, things worked just like they’d shown on the video online.
I don’t like a mystery like this. The scientist part of me likes to isolate variables and determine the problem. Humidity? I don’t know. Was it the powdered food coloring? I thought we’d tried without color at one point though. I have supplies still so I’m going to see if I can figure it out. My children like bath bombs so maybe they’ll help me figure the mystery out.
The Big Boy Update: My son lost his mind today. Said he was going to die. Said he wanted to leave our family. It went on and on. Eventually he wrote the six holiday and thank you cards though. It took him four times as long, but he got in some serious whining work during the whole ordeal.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter keeps falling asleep at night early. We’re wondering if it’s the low dose antibiotic she’s on that specifically targets the bladder for her repeat bladder infections. She wakes up just fine in the morning though and is well-rested.
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