Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Bath Melts

These are very cool. Not as explosive as bath bombs, but they offer more nice butters that bath bombs don't have! I'm not much of a bath person, but I do give myself home pedicures and these are fantastic for that. It makes the foot soak feel very luxurious and has the added benefit of not just looking cool, but softening and moisturizing your skin. I follow this 'Bath Melt with Emulsifier' recipe on Point of Interest! by Susan. It works fantastically. I use 12% cocoa butter and 20% Shea butter. I like the kind of bath melt with an emulsifier because it distributes the oil into the water, so you don't have it sitting on top. The baking soda and citric acid are included to help break up the melt so it can dissolve faster. I use Polysorbate as my emulsifier, but you could use any. They are firm enough but dissolve easily in the water. I do keep them in the fridge in a baggie during warmer months to make sure they don't melt. Though these will be coming into contact with water you do not need a preservative. This is because they are single serving portions that don't get wet then sit out; they are used up completely each time.

I really like Crafter's Choice refined cocoa and shea butters. They are really white, odorless and easy to work with. You will get a nice white melt using refined butters. And don't listen to anyone who tries to tell you that refining ruins the butter... all oils and butters are 'refined' to get the oil or butter out of the seed or nut in the first place! You can get citric acid lots of places online, but I had a hard time finding it in stores. I have since seen it in beer, wine or cheese making stores though!

You'll need some kind of mold too. The stars are from Bramble Berry, and the heart mold is from Ikea. Both under $3.

I decided to experiment a little this time and add a tablespoon of pink sea salt. I haven't had many uses for them and they are so pretty. I also thought of using some honey powder I have from Lotioncrafter... next time. ;)

This is the perfect time to use some of your citrus essential oils. You don't have to worry about gel phase destroying them, nor will they remain on your skin to photosensitize you like a leave on product might! I decided to go with grapefruit to go with the pink salt.

Weigh out your butters into a heat safe cup and put them the cup a pan of water on medium heat.

While the butters are melting you can whisk together your dry ingredients in a clean dry bowl.

When your butters are melted, whisk them into the dry ingredients. Add the polysorbate and fragrance. This is also where you would add colorants, but I actually don't know much about adding colors to something that you will be sitting in... I would imagine anything would leave a scum or ring around the tub! Bath bomb colorants are water soluble so they will dissolve in the bath water, but this is an anhydrous product and a water colorant wouldn't mix in. Additionally if it were already dispersed in water or glycerin you might need to add preservative to the mix since it's no longer anhydrous!

They might look kind of wet and soupy. Pop them in the freezer to firm up.

Once they are nice and hard (you don't want to squish them out of shape when you remove them from the mold) turn them upside down and they should fall out.

I suggest a toothpick to clean up the edges. It has more control than a knife so you don't risk gouging your shape.

As they warm up from being in the freezer they might sweat a little bit. Let them sit out and 'cure' for about a day.

Mine came to about 20g each. Susan from Point of Interest! suggests keeping them below 30g so they don't take forever to break up and dissolve!

Here is a collage of a heart melt breaking up! 

No comments :

Post a Comment