Hello ladies, and welcome to the most ambitious installment of Treat Yo’Self Thursday yet!

Yes, today is Friday. I know, I know, but this one took longer to perfect than expected. Hopefully you’ll find it to be worth the wait!

So, who doesn’t love a good bath? I certainly do, it’s a great way to unwind after a stressful day. However, the thought of stewing in boring bathwater doesn’t thrill me, so I have many a time spent a pretty penny at LUSH and other stores on bath time goodies.

I particularly enjoy bath bombs, but I have been extra stressed lately and bath bombs come at a premium in retail stores, so I decided to try my hand at making my own.

I looked up about a million different recipes online, and have melded them together to fit my needs (as well as my rather shallow budget and limited resources).

Here’s what I used:

-      Baking soda 1 cup
-      Citric acid ½ cup (I found this at bulk barn, but you can also get it at health food stores)
-      Corn starch ½ cup
-      Epsom salts ½ cup (you can also use mineral salts or fancy bath salts if you’re made of money)
-      Water ¾ tsp
-      Light vegetable oil (I used extra virgin olive oil) 2.5-3 tbsp
-      A mold  (I used random things from around my house, for the traditional round bath bomb it seems most people use round snap together Christmas ornaments)

The optional ingredients, which make bath time extra fun are:

-      Essential or fragrance oil 2 tsp
-      Food coloring a few drops
-      Fun additives like glitter, flower petals, confetti or what have you

Here’s what I did:

Combine dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

Mix wet ingredients in a separate bowl – you can add your food coloring in to this mixture if you want, I added it separately after the rest of the wet ingredients were mixed in for some reason.

Add mixture of wet ingredients to the dry ingredients about a teaspoon at a time, and whisk them together. Be careful!  Don’t add too much liquid too fast or it will start to fizz up!

When you’ve finished adding your wet ingredients, test the mixture to see if it’s the right consistency. If you squeeze a handful of it, it should stay together and not crumble. If your mixture is too wet, add more of the dry ingredients, and vice versa.

This is when I added a few drops of red and blue food coloring and about 1 tablespoon of GLITTER, because who doesn’t love being covered in glitter for a few days after taking a bath?

Once your mixture is complete, pack and press it firmly into whatever you’ve chosen as a mold. I chose LUSH massage bar tins and those balls that usually contain horribly worthless toys in vending machines. The massage bar tins didn’t work so great because of the ridge making it difficult to remove the bombs, but the lid worked very well! You can use anything really, a cupcake tray, measuring cups, empty plastic Easter eggs, whatever your heart desires. If you’re using something with two halves, pack each half and then overfill with some loose mixture which will compress when you bring the two halves together.

Remove your bath bomb from the mold by pressing the sides gently and place your bombs on paper towels to absorb any moisture.

VOILA, beautiful bath bombs (that may or may not violate some sort of trademark law, sorry LUSH, it was unintentional!).

I used one right away and as you can see it worked great!

If you made extra I would let them sit to dry for a day or two then store in a dry place (too much moisture will ruin your bombs!).

That’s it! Not half as hard as I thought it would be! You can make a bunch of these to enjoy yourself, plus they would make great inexpensive gifts… Treat Yo Friends Thursday!

I hope you try this one out, and let me know what fun additives you include in your bath bombs! Feel free to comment with any questions or suggestions for what I should do next time.

Written by Jessica Knox