It’s that time of the semester where you wish you could click your heels and run away from all your tests, quizzes, papers, group projects or whatever else college manages to throw your way. Keeping my head above water after coming back from break seems impossible. All my money was depleted by spring break shenanigans, so alongside being stressed I’m also on a tight budget. I’m sure I’m not the only one in a post-break funk. I decided I needed a to do a little self-care and took on the challenge of making some bath bombs.
I got the idea from a Buzzfeed video and immediately thought this 30 second tutorial for a DIY bath bomb probably makes this look easier than it really is, but I decided to try it anyway. I followed the tutorial closely only substituting one ingredient. I swapped out citric acid for lemon juice (Google told me it was okay). Everything went smoothly…until I tried to take them out the mold. Unfortunately, my bath bombs were a fail and they crumbled apart after a couple of hours of drying in the fridge.
I’m really not sure what went wrong. It may have been the citric acid swap or the fact that I have terrible luck with DIY projects. I was really fascinated with bath bombs and how they worked so I was sure after understanding what reacted with who I’d be putting Lush out of business in no time. I will say it wasn’t a complete fail. I had a friend help me and while we were making the bombs we were able to get our minds off of school and just have some fun. Also, we have Snapchats and pictures to cherish our epic fail.
If you’re interested in trying these yourself here’s what you’ll need:
DRY INGREDIENTS
Baking soda (1 cup)
Cornstarch (1/2 cup)
Epsom salt (1/2 cup)
Citric acid *DON’T SUBSTITUTE* (1/2 cup)
WET INGREDIENTS
Coconut oil (3 tsp)
Food coloring (3 drops)
Bath bomb mold
Excluding the bath bomb mold, I found all these ingredients at my local grocery store and it all came up to $20.
Full disclosure, this was messy and some ingredients were hard to find. The baking soda and cornstarch got everywhere, but fortunately, it was an easy cleanup. Also, no need to worry about the food coloring, regular dish or hand soap will remove it. I had a hard time finding a spherical bath bomb mold in stores, but they’re easy to order online. Lastly, the citric acid was hard to find, hence my substitution fail.
I didn’t have the heart to post the crumbled bath bombs — they’re resting in bath bomb heaven. Here’s how they looked in the mold instead.