Bath Bombs – Hands On Demo presented by Brandy McClurg

Bath Bombs – Hands On Demo presented by Brandy McClurg

Bath Bombs – Hands on Demo

I am going to show you how to make a bath bomb with the Willow Bath Press.  This can also be used as a stamper.  We also have a GreenerLifeClub background stamp for Ms. Catherine over there. When you guys come up  you will see that I have a sample bar from a customer that we did a stamp and about a year later I ran into her out at one of the shows in Alabama and she said here you can have this.  I said “Oh, we never get to see the finished product.”  So, I show it to everybody.  Because when we first got the stamp I was like, well I don’t think it will work, it is too detailed and then it come out and wow, I am impressed.  Her logo is really good too.  So this will be up here.
I only brought a few molds as because you can see, we have 20 some molds and well my suitcases was heavy enough, along with Elsa’s press.   We have the cuber and the cylinder mold. As you can see, the cylinder actually has a logo in it.   You can design these and have your logo put in these two molds only. You will be able to see those.    This is like one of my favorites, it’s kind of like a little vanilla wafer or you can put together and make two of them, make little sandwiches with like some whipped soap.  We actually call them macaroon.  This is the daisy, it actually has the button in the middle.  I like to take and put a different color in the center and put the rest of my material in there, so my center is a different color.   I have three, these are kind of odd, these are not actually on our web site but we have done these.  This is my favorite.  It’s got like five little bubbles and then the one we will be doing, so you guys can see these.  These actually held up well considering they have been abused through the process of being packed and unpacked.   And our little egg.  We are actually going to put it in water.   I used micas for this one, so we will see if they actually leave like the ring that everyone talks about.  
Elsa		Do you have pages in the book?
Brandy		No I don’t, so when I get ready to the recipe, you might want to write it down.   Okay, the basic ingredients for our basic recipe is:
2 cups baking soda.
1 cup citric acid
2 tablespoons of Almond Oil, but you can use a mix of coconut, sunflower, almond, jojoba.  I use almond oil but I have used vegetable oil, but if you’re just testing it?
1 – 2 teaspoons of Essential Oil or a fragrance oil

Now if you are going to color it or just going to experiment, I suggest you go to the store and buy some food coloring.  The food coloring will, usually there is not enough in there to stain, but if it gets in the sun it will fade.  The egg, like I said I have several kinds of Micas, but there are numerous companies out there that actually sell colorants that are made for bath bombs.  TKB Trading has some and others.  

We’re going to see about the micas.  When I make mine, I test a new mold.  If we do a custom mold for somebody or a stamp.  If I put this mold up here you’re going to go… ehhh…. but if I put this macaroon up there you’re going to oh, well, I could make a foot bomb out of this or I could make a little sandwich, or lifesavers in a sample pack.  It’s the same way with you guys, you have to figure out how you’re going to present this.  

I prefer to use witch hazel, some people actually use water and it can be done.  At the end when you’re spritzing it.   I am going to make the first batch and then after that I will bring volunteers up and somebody can make some, somebody can be mixing another batch.   I typically do it by hand, but we are actually going to use a mixer today. This is how it should be done.  But since I’m just making one batch, I’m not breaking out a mixer for that.   I’ve usually got about 10 minutes to test it and make sure it works fine.

Elsa:		And citric acid will eat your nail polish right off.

Brandy		And if you have a cut that you didn’t know about, you will definitely know about it and make sure that you wash your hands very well, especially when you take your gloves off, because if you happen to touch your lip, it doesn’t really burn but it has a nasty taste.

I’m going to measure out my materials.  If you have any questions, you can ask me while I’m doing it.  I can multi-task some.   You are going to mix all of your dry ingredients first.  Now depending on what kind of colorant you use, you can either if it’s a water soluble, then you will want to mix it with your oil.  If it’s just a powder, like I’m just going to use a mica, so I’m going to mix it in my dry ingredients.  Now the thing to remember is when you add your mica or your lab colors to your baking soda and stuff, it will look beautiful, it this bright color.    You are going to add the citric acid to it and it is going to tone that color down, because you are adding more material.  So if you want this really really bright blue, you are going to add a little extra to compensate for adding the citric acid to it, because it will go from this bright blue to this baby blue.

Michelle	Can you add more color?

Brandy		You can, but your citric acid depending upon on how much humidity is in your location.

Brittany	Can you use color powder?

Brandy		Yes.  The micas are all powder, but like I said we are going to put the egg in water to see what it does and see if it stains, because I have never actually used the mica ones, so let’s see, since it’s not technically a bath bomb.

Elsa		I think Britney is trying to say anything that is skin safe you can use.

Brandy		We’ll see, it may not be dark enough.  When you use a mixer, you might want to put a towel around it to do that.  I’m improvising on the oil because I don’t have any teaspoons, so typically what I do is I use the cap, so I just use two capfuls.    

When you get ready to use your citric acid, you want to open it, you want to get your citric acid out and close it right back up.  My citric acid at the shop, I actually have desk tent packs that we purchase that we put in there because it does sit in our shop when we’re done to help absorb any moisture that might be in the package.  You can buy them on line.  Once they expand and have been used, you can put them in the oven, I believe at 200 for like an hour or so depending on the size and it will suck the moisture back out of them and dry them out and you can reuse them.  

Okay, I’m going to mix my citric acid in here.  I’m going to check my mixture and see that I don’t have any lumps or anything and make sure everything got mixed up well.  I think I’m going to add a little bit more color, because purple is one that tends to fade out.    
Basically with your powder ingredients you want to make sure that everything, there are no big clumps.  Now, this will look a little clumpy, but it’s not actually clumpy.  It is not like a hard clump.  This is because of the oil in it, it’s going to clump like this.   I’m going to spritz it, and I usually do about 3 spritzes, with witch hazel.   While you’re mixing the witch hazel in, you kind of compress it and see if it sticks together.  See how this kind of crumbles apart, we’re almost there.  And the citric acid and the baking soda will fizz a little bit when you use the witch hazel and I usually try to do two to three spritzes, while I’m doing it while I’m going.   You don’t want to get too many in there, because you can go from being just wet enough to over wet in like one squirt.

Question	Does it have to be witch hazel?

Brandy:	No, you can use water.  Now you can use an electric hand mixer like one that isn’t on the stand, you can do it by hand with a wire whisk or when you get into really large batches, you can get a 5 gallon bucket and one of the pot whippers and put a hole in the lid and do it that way.  You can mix up all of your dry ingredients, except for the citric acid and put it in a bucket and actually store it for a length of time.    

I’m going to take my mold out, most of our molds, you just simply fill it with material.  Now they have a groove on the side here on both sides and this one is milled off all the way.  The one that is milled off always goes to the back of the fence and these two go within the silver.  I’m going to slide it in here and bring that down.

Elsa		You only push it down one time?   You don’t go er  er  er?

Brandy:	No, if you want to er er er, but you’re just wasting your time.  

Question	What do you call the press?

Brandy		A Willow Bath Press.   It is also listed on our web site as a soap stamper.  If you buy the Willow Press, the molds are separate.  These are all different shapes that we have, I think we are up to 24 – 25. 

Elsa		27
Brandy		Ok, 27.  We have almond, we are really running out of room to put them in our nice little bins, but anyway we do custom ones, you know we stamp them.  But if you buy a stamper, you are going to get this little dude right here, it looks just like the one here, it is.  It comes with a stamp, it is a package deal so it is a better price than if you buy this as a bath bomb and then buy a stamp separate.  It’s a dual purpose machine.
Question	Do you do different sizes?
Brandy		Yes, the largest sphere, is an 1-3/4”, which is the mini ball.  It’s the second row, third one over.  We put them on CDs because internationally everybody’s CDs are the same size.  So, to try to view the size, but if you scroll down further, it actually tells you approximately what these would weigh, because once I make them I have to go weight them right afterwards and try to get about how tall it is.  But on the mini balls, the more material you pack in there, the larger the “D” ring in the middle is going to be because the two parts come down and the material in the middle makes what we call a “D” ring and we include a little piece that takes the rings off, but if you notice on the egg, this is the actual ring, the little Saturn ring we call it, I don’t “D” ring mine.  So if you put if in the egg carton it sets right against here and nestles.  Okay someone want to make a bath bomb.
I knew you were going to, come on Elsa.
Elsa		It’s just like the sand you were talking about.
Brandy		All of our presses no matter which one you buy comes with a complete instruction booklet, give you two basic recipes.  Our first recipe includes Borax.  I don’t use it, you can choose to use it, but I’m not adding anything to them I’m making them pretty for you guys to say, ooh I want that.  In our original recipe there is Borox in it.  
If we hurry everyone can do it.  
Question	How long do you have to dry it (bath bomb)?
Brandy		I usually leave mine until the next day because it is usually being done at 11:00 p.m. so they are there after I get home from work.
Question	How do you put the smell in there?
Brandy		You can add it in there when you do the oil.
		Now the one thing that everybody needs to remember about bath bombs, humidity is not your friend.  It is not, it will make them blow up, it will go from being this beautiful salt to looking liking like the stay puff marshmallow man. 
Brandy		All right, we are getting ready to go to lunch.  Did everybody have fun making their molds?   I assume the first bath bomb for some but not all of you.  If we have time later, we do have the material and a couple of different molds that you can make a cylinder or you can make a macaroon.  We have to see how much time.  





 

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