# Bubbling bath bomb lolly pops



## rainbowdrops31 (Aug 21, 2013)

Just wondering if anyone has made these, and got any advice about making them. I have tried this recipe but they don't seem to be getting very hard. Haven't tried in the bath yet so not sure on the bubble factor.

30g bicarbonate of soda 
10g citric acid
35g Slsa
1/2 teaspoon jojoba oil
Cocoa butter  (enough to make a dough)
1 teaspoon fragrance

Mixed all together to form a dough then form balls put sticks in.

Any advice would be appreciated 

Debbie


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## Robert (Aug 21, 2013)

Is the object to make a single-use pop?  Or to make one that you dissolve just part of in each bath?

I'm not keen on combining fizzy and foamy in a single tablet, seems a waste to me, because a fizzie you want to fizz while you're in the water and can feel it, and a foamy you want to splash a lot to foam up, which loses the fizz.  I can understand the use of a little fizzing material as an excipient for a single-use foamy, but not a lot of it.

Also, using SLSA alone to make foam also is a waste.  Without a foam stabilizer, you have to use a lot more of it per bath to make a lasting foam, resulting in bath water that's a lot "soapier" and more grease-cutting than it would be if you used less SLSA along with a foam stabilizer.

What condition are you getting the citric acid in, and how are you treating it for mixing?  You'll need it to be a very fine powder, equal in fineness to the bicarbonate of soda, to have a good chance of the mixture's hardening enough to form onto a stick.


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## rainbowdrops31 (Aug 22, 2013)

Hi Robert, It's for a single use bubble bath, my citric is fine granules and I'm just mixing it in with the bicarbonate and slsa. What would you recoment as a good  but mild foam stabalizer and at what %

Thanks Debbie


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## lsg (Aug 22, 2013)

Cream of tartar is often used as a foam stabilizer.


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## Robert (Aug 22, 2013)

rainbowdrops31 said:


> Hi Robert, It's for a single use bubble bath, my citric is fine granules


Then it's probably coarser than the NaHCO3.  I would mill the citric acid to a dusty fineness before mixing.


> What would you recoment as a good  but mild foam stabalizer and at what %


There are several options.  The trick is not introducing too much water, and a lot of foam stabilizers will come as water solutions.

I think you can obtain hydroxyethylcellulose dry.  It's not very effective in a bathtubful of water, but better than nothing.  I'd use it in equal weight to the SLSA.

You can obtain some alkanolamides nearly dry, in which case they'll come as solids you'll have to melt to mix.  These are lauramide & cocamide DEA & MIPA.  They're not all that mild by themselves, but by using just a small amount you can reduce the total surfactant (SLSA + alkanolamide) per bath and so gain mildness.  I would use a weight ratio of between 1:15 and 1:8 of alkanolamide to SLSA.

Alkamidopropyl betaines are milder foam stabilizers than the alkanolamides but not as potent, and come as water solutions, typically 30% actives.  They can actually reduce the irritancy of at least some anionic surfactants (which is the class SLSA is in), although I haven't seen any test results with SLSA.  The easiest to get in small quantities is cocamidopropyl betaine.  If you can get spray-dried as I did once (sample from Henkel), great, but otherwise you're going to have to premix it with either the NaHCO3 or the citric acid and then dry it before mixing with the other component, unless you want to try some adsorbent that's better at soaking up water.  You should try to get up to a ratio of maybe half as much alkamidopropyl betaine active as SLSA, though that may be difficult starting with that much water.  If the alkamidopropyl betaine solution is 30% actives (usually stated as 35% solids with up to 5% NaCl), that'd mean you need, for instance, 10 mL of solution to supply 3 g of the betaine.

You can get coco-betaine at 45% actives solution; not quite as good as cocamidopropyl betaine, but maybe more convenient formulating because less water.

Amine oxides don't reduce irritancy as much as the betaines do, but they're much milder than alkanolamides, although less potent (but just as effective) as foam stabilizers.  Common ones are lauramine oxide and cocamidopropyl amine oxide.  They too come as 30% in water.  You'll need less of these than you would betaines, but more than alkanolamides.  I would go for a weight ratio of between 1:10 and 1:5 of amine oxide actives to SLSA, calculating and handling the same way as for a 30% betaine.

If you can get sultaine or Mirataine type amphoteric surfactants in suitable quantities, they could be used too.

How much total weight do you want each pop to be?  Do you expect the user to choose to use it to either make foam (splashing well as the tub fills) or fizz (taking it into the full bathtub while sitting in it), depending on hir desire for that bath?  If that's the case, there's got to be enough total material in there to satisfy either purpose, but not too much in the case of the foam making.  Nobody complains about too much fizz, but people won't want too much surfactant in the water, although the amount of foam people like differs a lot.  I would figure 10 grams or less of SLSA per bath, and then figure the amount of foam stabilizer from the ratios I suggested.  If you find a certain amount of SLSA adequate per bath, then with the foam stabilizer you should find considerably less SLSA to be adequate.

If you haven't already, try experimenting with only the fizzing ingredients, and at other times only the foaming ingredients, to see what amount of each gives a pleasing effect.  It's not always easy to tell in a sinkful or bowlful, although those will give you some idea; you're going to need volunteers or yourself to take a lot of baths, or at least to fill up the tub and feel the water immediately and let it settle for a while.


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