Adventures With The Sage

What if you don’t want bubbles or a fizzing bath but you want a nicely scented bath?  Bath salts can be your answer!  I’ll scent these Bath Salts with Punch Party Fragrance Oil and color them with Purple Raspberry.  Bath salts are also another great project to sit down and do with kids.

#1  Collect the items you need.

• Salt, I used Fine Dead Sea Salt, but coarse sea salt, or epsom salt works well too.
• Fragrance Oil of your choice
• One of the four powdered dyes (Grape, Purple Raspberry, Lemon Yellow, Ocean Blue)
• Bottle with spray head, I used the 2 oz PET Boston Round Bottles, 20mm and the 20mm Black Spray Head
• .15 cc scoops for measuring dyes
• Small transfer pipettes
• Water
• Gallon size Zipper style bags
• Decorative bags for giving
• Ribbon

#2  Add .15cc of color to 2 fl oz of water.  Cap bottle and shake to ensure that the color is mixed thoroughly.

#3  Pour salt into the zipper bag.

#4  Add your selected fragrance to the salt.  I used the Fragrance Calculator to determine the amount of fragrance I needed for 2 pounds of salt.  For a moderate scent, the Fragrance Calculator suggested that I use 8.1 mL.  I’ll just round that recommendation down to 8 mL for my own sanity.

#5  Knead the fragrance into the salt.  Once the clumps are gone, we can start adding color.

#6  Spray the color over the salt.  I usually give 2-5 spritzes for the start.

#7  Shake the salt to blend the color.  You may have to spritz the salt again to get the color you desire.  I spritzed color to this salt 4 times.  For a brighter color just continue to spray apply this color until the desired color is achieved.

#8 Now the bath salts are ready for scooping into the decorative bags.

#9  Hooray!  The bath salts are now finished and ready to gift to that someone special in your life.  Enjoy!

Don’t forget to wash your hands and clean up the counter.  Dry color is very potent and can color the next person, or sandwich, that touches the counter surface.

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Since Valentine’s Day is around the corner, I thought we would have the weeks leading up to February 14th focus on lovely gifts.

Today, I’m going to start with an easy project, Magic Color Bath Fizzies. This recipe has been in our Recipes Section for years, but I am going to demonstrate how easy this recipe is to make.  This is a great project to do with kids. I’m going to make two batches. One will be scented with Blowing Bubbles Fragrance Oil and colored with Purple Raspberry Color, while the other will be scented with Eucalyptus Spearmint Fragrance Oil and colored with Ocean Blue Color.

#1  Collect the items you need.

• Cornstarch
• Citric Acid
• Baking Soda
• Fragrance Oil of your choice
• One of the four powdered dyes (Grape, Purple Raspberry, Lemon Yellow, Ocean Blue)
• .15 cc scoops for measuring dyes
• Gallon size Zipper style bags
• Measuring cups
• Small transfer pipettes
• Decorative bags for giving
• Ribbon

Recipe

• 2 cups Cornstarch
• 1 cup Citric Acid
• 1-3/4 cup Baking Soda
• up to 1 tsp Fragrance Oil
• .15 cc scoop of your chosen color

#2  Measure cornstarch, citric acid, and baking soda into zipper bag, and mix together.

#3  Now that we have nice powder, let’s add the fragrance oil and powered color.

#4  Knead the bag to disperse any clumps of fragrance oil. It is easiest to knead if the bag is not overly inflated with air.

Whoops!  I didn’t zip my bag closed all the way!  At least this mess is easy to clean up.

#5  The clumps are all gone.  We have a smooth white powder.  Wait!  White powder? Didn’t we just add a color?  Yes, we did.  These bath fizzies are white until you put them in water.  Don’t believe me?  Let’s test these Magic Color Bath Fizzies.

See!  There is a reason these bath fizzies are called Magic Color!

#6  Fill the decorative bags with the bath fizzies and tie a bow around the top.  Tada!  Your Magic Color Bath Fizzies are finished.

These bath fizzies will go back to the shipping department on Monday!

General FAQ about Bath Fizzies

Q:  Why do I need to put my bath fizzies in a bag?  I’ve got this really cute jar I want to put them in.

A: The Baking Soda and Citric Acid react together to produce the desired fizzing action.  This reaction releases a gas.  If you accidentally get the Bath Fizzies wet while they are in a lidded jar, the pressure can make the jar explode.  Glass jars can break if dropped on the bathroom floor.

Q:  What is the recommended amount of bath fizzies to put in the bathtub?

A: We recommend the maximum amount to be 1/4 cup for a full bath.  Try 1 Tablespoon to a partially filled tub first. Enjoy!

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Yesterday, we chose a green color for our Body Milk Gift Kit scented with Cucumber Fragrance Oil. Now for the fun part of making the kit.

#1 Collect the items you need.

• Body Milk Gift Kit
• Premixed dyes from Jan 12 2009 post
• Paper towels

#2 Add fragrance. The 1 fl oz of Cucumber Fragrance Oil can also be added to the entire gallon of Body Milk.

#3 Add color. I used a total of 4 drops of color, 1 drop of blue and 3 drops of yellow.

#4 Here the part where I generally recruit others to shake, but alas, I had to shake it today. The gallon jug the Body Milk is in is a frosted jug, so you can see the color through the jug. As you can see, the color isn’t mixing yet. Oh well, I guess I have to keep shaking.

#5 As you can see, the Body Milk is almost completely mixed The color is very faint and hard to see through the frosted gallon jug.

#6 Yippee! The color and fragrance are completely mixed. We’re almost done!

#7 You can start pumping the Body Milk into bottles. Once the pump has been primed, filling the bottles always happens quickly.

#8 Remember the two thirds rule from the Bubble Bath? If you do, then you can skip the next paragraph, but if you don’t, or you need a refresher, read the next paragraph.

We follow a labeling rule that is easy to understand and catches the eye. The two-thirds rule is really simple. First, take a sheet of paper and set the bottom of the container even with a edge of the paper. At the shoulders of the container (bottle in our case), draw a line. Find the 2/3 point between the line that you just drew and the edge of the paper. Next, we are going to mark the 1/2 point. Once these points have been marked, you now have an outline for keeping your labels at an even height on all your bottles. To place the label, you will want to cover the 2/3 point of the bottle. Wonder if I’m right? Raid your kitchen, laundry room and cosmetics to check other labels. 2/3 is the point where your eyes focus first. Most companies have the product name in the area of 2/3. Wow!

#9 The lotion is all finished and labeled. I wish I could keep a bottle for myself! I’m going to send these back to the shipping department now to go out with some lucky orders!

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Let’s color the world! Oh. The world colors are actually pretty. Let’s mimic the world! This blog entry will use a Bubble Bath Gift Kit and the dyes we mixed yesterday. Today I’ll demonstrate the Purple Raspberry dye in Bubble Bath scented with Cotton Candy Fragrance Oil.

#1 Collect the items you will need.

• Bubble Bath Gift Kit
• Premixed dyes from Jan 12, 2009 post
• Paper towels

#2 Pour the fragrance oil into the Bubble Bath Base. Cotton Candy is one of the fragrances that can be used at 1 fl oz for a full gallon of Bubble Bath, so don’t worry about using the whole bottle!

#3 Add color.

I added 4 drops of color. You can always add more color. It is very difficult to take the color away once it has been added though!

#4 Shake well. This will take several minutes. If your arms become tired from the shaking, recruit a family member, the next door neighbor kid, or others that come to see what you are doing. You may have to bake cookies for payment!

#5 Test. If you stir the pump around in the jug and then pull the pump out, you can check to see if the color and fragrance have blended or not. Whoops! This time I didn’t shake the Bubble Bath enough, so I need to shake some more! Maybe I’ll go find the neighbor boy and bribe him with cookies.

#6 Look at that! The Bubble Bath is now all mixed. The small amount on the pump is hard to see compared to the Bubble Bath that wasn’t completely mixed. The color and fragrance are now thoroughly mixed into the bubble bath, we can pump into the bottles. Yippee! We’re almost done!

#7 Cap the bottles. Sometimes I’m lucky and I can bribe someone to cap the bottles for me as I fill them.

#8 Once the bottles have been capped, you can label them. We follow a labeling rule that is easy to understand and catches the eye. The two-thirds rule is really simple. First, take a sheet of paper and set the bottom of the container even with a edge of the paper. At the shoulders of the container (bottle in our case), draw a line. Find the 2/3 point between the line that you just drew and the edge of the paper. Next, we are going to mark the 1/2 point. Once these points have been marked, you now have an outline for keeping your labels at an even height on all your bottles. To place the label, you will want to cover the 2/3 point of the bottle. Wonder if I’m right? Raid your kitchen, laundry room and cosmetics to check other labels. 2/3 is the point where your eyes focus first. Most companies have the product name in the area of 2/3. Wow!

#8 Tada! These bottles of Cotton Candy Bubble Bath are now finished. Don’t they look fantastic?

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