Treating myself with bath bombs!!

Hey guys! How has your February been now that the month is almost over? I definitely cannot complain about mine! February is a pretty cool month for me regardless because I happen to be born in February! Any February 9th babies out there?! Special shoutout to you! Even bigger shoutout to the ones born in 1988 - I was born at 2:29PM - am I older?! :D 

I’m pretty sure mentioned before that I have some issues taking rest days. This is because I’m so afraid of falling off the bandwagon and because of the guilt that I experience on days off or on days where I might indulge a little more than usual. Since I know that’s not healthy at all, I’ve been coming up with ways to treat myself! This month I’ve been making sure to stop telling myself no so much, and I’ve also been giving myself LOTS of love by means of bubble baths!! I love love love bubble baths. Growing up, my parents only had a shower stall in the bathroom that we had access too (we rented the second floor with the beautiful claw toed tub out until I was in 8th grade) so my bubble baths were limited to Grandma Doris’s house and a large storage container that I used as a tub until I got too big for it and old enough to just take showers anyway. Maybe that’s why I prefer bubble baths now as an adult? While a bubble bath is nice in general, I like to go the extra mile! So I’ve been trying my hand at making bath bombs! I’ve finally found a recipe that works pretty for me and I’m so excited to share!

Bath Bomb Recipe!

The ingredients you will need are baking soda, cornstarch, epsom salts, citric acid, oil, essential or fragrance oil, soap or food coloring, a teeny bit of water, and a mold. I used a medium size Easter egg. You can usually find the citric acid in the canning section of the supermarket. It was a bit difficult for me to find, but I found mine right away at Meijer! I got scented oil for soap and soap coloring at my local craft store but food coloring would be all right, and on the last couple I made, I’ve been out of scented oil for soap, and I’ve used lavender scented baby oil. 

Dry ingredients list
1/2 baking soda
1/4 cornstarch

1/4 citric acid
1/4 epsom salt

First you take your dry ingredients. You need 1/2 cup of baking soda, and then 1/4 cup of cornstarch, epsom salts, and citric acid. I use a whisk to mix them together and make sure all my dry ingredients are thoroughly mixed. 

Second you mix together your wet ingredients, and this is where things get a bit tricky depending on your location, you level of humidity, and so on. Here’s what worked best for me. Take 3 teaspoons of oil first. I used castor oil but any oil would be all right. Olive oil, coconut oil, baby oil, you get the idea. The first recipe I found on Youtube called for a tablespoon of essential or scented oil. My first two batches of bath bombs, I followed it to a T. It works all right, but the scent was VERY strong. That’s okay, but I also had problems with the wet ingredients reacting with the dry ingredients when I mixed them and expanding a little bit and taking a long time to dry. Because of this, I added in one to two teaspoons of scented oil to my castor oil. Next I added several drops of my soap (or food) coloring. I added quite a but because I like the color to be fairly dark and vibrant. I don’t have an exact teaspoon amount, but I put anywhere from 20-30 drops in. I mix my wet ingredients and then SLOWLY mix it to my dry ingredients. I’ve actually learned that the wet oils don’t exactly start the fizzing in the dry ingredients, but I still use my whisk and mix the wet and the dry ingredients very, very quickly to try and avoid any reaction.


Once it’s all mixed up, you will have a consistency of slightly wet sand. You can press it together in your hand but for me, the bath bomb still crumbles when you try and it in your mold (I used a plastic easter egg) or at least it does for me. In this second youtube video I found, these girls added in the wet oil ingredients and the dry ingredients and then added the water last. This has worked great for me! I use 1-2 tablespoons of water and either mix it in VERY slowly, whisking as I mix in the water to avoid reaction, or I use a spray bottle, still whisking quickly as I mix the water. Once finished, this gives me the same consistency of wet sand, but instead of slightly wet, it’s slightly wetter if that makes sense. I took this video to give you an idea of what the consistency looks like for me!

A video posted by Julie (@z0mgaah) on Feb 26, 2016 at 11:07pm PST

You can stop here and bottle up the mixture as a fizzy bath salt, or you can continue making bombs. Pack the mixture into both sides the mold tightly to where it is overflowing and them press together. Carefully take off one side of your egg/mold and then the other. If your bomb crumbles, you might need more water. One thing I’ve been doing is that after taking out my bomb out of my egg, I will press it between my hands to make sure it really is packed in. As you can see in my images, the bombs look slightly lumpy and more round than an oblong egg shape, but I just like making sure they’re completely packed together. This recipe makes two to two and a half medium sized bath bombs. After packing them together, I set them on a paper cupcake holder to dry out at least overnight, sometimes up to 48 hours. Then I drop them in the bath tub and thoroughly enjoy the fizzy goodness! The epsom salt helps my sore and achy muscles, the fragrance makes the whole bathroom smell amazing, and the oil helps my dry skin.

It’s an awesome way to treat yourself after a long week of hardcore workouts! I love soaking in the tub and using these along with my favorite bubble bath! What a way to relax… dim the lights, play some music, and just relax. Ahhhh!

Interested to see how they work? Here is one I used the other night. Same recipe I shared, just used a different soap coloring!

A video posted by Julie (@z0mgaah) on Feb 28, 2016 at 10:14am PST

I like to think of working out as a way to better myself and in the long run, I hope it’ll be a great treat, but it’s obviously not like a bubble bath! What’s you favorite way to treat yourself?