Bath Bomb Hearts for Valentine's Day

Today Ava and Lola will be celebrating Valentine's Day a little early with their classes at school (they have both Friday and Monday off school). There will be all sorts of fun love themed crafts and activities throughout the day in both of their classrooms, but we all know that the best part about celebrating Valentine's Day at school is, of course, sharing Valentine's gifts and cards with classmates!

This year the girls will be handing out home made heart shaped fizzy bath bombs that we made together. I'm so happy with how these little beauties turned out. And the smell! Ah... I've been bagging them up this evening and I can't tell you just how nice our apartment smells! Mmm... lavender and rose. They smell so good.

Making bath bombs may seem a little daunting, but they're actually pretty easy as long as you follow the instructions. Speaking of instructions, I'm sure you're wanting to know just how we made these so here you go...

Fizzy Bath Bomb Hearts

What you'll need:
4oz Baking Soda
2oz Citric Acid (I found this on Amazon here)
2oz Corn Starch
2oz Epsom Salts (I found this on Amazon here)
1 1/4 teaspoons Coconut Oil
1 teaspoon Essential Oils (I used lavender and rose)
1 - 1 1/12 teaspoons water
Optional
1 - 2 drops Food Coloring
Small Flowers

Heart Shaped Silicone Mold (I found mine on Amazon here)
3" x 5" Cellophane Bags
Heavy Card Stock
Label Printable (download it here)

In a large bowl add the baking soda, citric acid, corn starch and epsom salts. I like to use a glass bowl as, unlike plastic, it won't retain the smell of the essential oils that we'll be adding later.

Stir the dry ingredients together.

If you'd like to add small flowers, mix these in with the dry ingredients. We used culinary lavender in the lavender scented bath bombs but kept the rose scented bath bombs flower free for variety.

If you'd like to add flowers to the tops of bath bombs, sprinkle a few into the mold now.

In a small bowl, mix together the water, essential oil and coconut oil. If the coconut oil is solid, microwave it for a short time to melt it first. If you'd like to color you bath bombs, add the food coloring to the other wet ingredients. We kept the lavender bath bombs white but added a drop of red food color to the rose bath bombs to give them a pink tint.

Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix through thoroughly right away. If you don't mix the wet ingredients in right away the dry ingredients will start to fizz and we don't want that happening until the bath bombs are being used in a bath tub full of warm water!

The mixture should now look a little crumbly. 

To check that the consistency is correct, pick up a small handful and squeeze it in your hand. It should stay clumped together. If the mixture is too dry to stick to itself, add a little more water half a teaspoon at a time until the desired consistency is achieved. It should clump together when squeezed but not feel wet.

Once the mixture is ready, it's time to put it into the mold. Squeeze a handful of the mixture in your hand to make it clump together, then gently push it into the mold. Make sure to push the mixture right into the mold to achieve the best shape. 

Once the molds are filled, put them aside to dry for a few hours. You can actually remove the bath bombs from the mold after 15 minutes or so and then leave them to dry, but I found that they worked out better the longer I left them in the mold. The advantage to removing the bath bombs after only 15 minutes is that if any crumble or don't work out well, the mixture is still soft and can be pressed back into the mold. That said, I found that when I left them in the mold for several hours, they all came out of the mold perfectly and I didn't need to redo any.

When the bath bombs feel dry and hard, turn the mold over and gently press them out. Leave them to dry for a few more hours or overnight if possible before bagging them as gifts.

While you wait for the bath bombs to dry, download and print out the label (free downloadable here). Cut the labels out along the lines and fold them in half. Have your little Valentines write out the names on the back of the label.

We bagged two bath bombs per bag, but you can do as many as you like. Fold the top of the cello bag over and tape it down. I then folded it over a second time before adding the label, but this depends on how many bath bombs you add to the bag. Place the label on the top and staple it in two places to attach it.

And voila! You're done! Beautiful smelling Valentine's gifts to pamper your loved ones.

This recipe has been adapted from one I found on A Beautiful Mess.