# Bubble Bars



## jean1C (Jun 19, 2013)

Anyone make these? I have tried twice and they ended up an epic failure. 
Too moist and crumbly. (although they were pretty..pink and yellow). 

I ventured into LUSH today to check out the ones that they were selling. I cannot believe the prices....(I don't sell to the public...I just like the idea of the bubble bars). 
I can do bath bombs....The recipe for bubble shouldn't be that much different. COCOAMIDE DEA? It is suppose to be a lather booster. In addition to glycerine and LSLA...has anyone used this? 

I think I have a process down...JUST need them to "dry" and firm up....any ideas?


----------



## Relle (Jun 19, 2013)

I'm about to attempt them with the recipe from soap queen
http://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-b...w-to-make-solid-bubble-bath-on-soap-queen-tv/
This might give you some ideas to see what you are doing different.


----------



## jean1C (Jun 19, 2013)

relle, 
That is the recipe I tried. I couldn't get it to the right consistency. Let me know how it works out for you. Maybe I just need to work the "dough" a little more?


----------



## MegMatt927 (Jun 19, 2013)

I just made that same recipe from soap queen over the weekend.  Minus the tapioca powder since I didn't have any.  Mine didn't hold the round shape and ended up looking flat and droopy, despite my efforts to "reshape" them while drying lol.  It says to wait 3-5 days before using, when I test mine I'll let you know if they turned out any good.


----------



## MegMatt927 (Jun 24, 2013)

Just wanted to give an update of my experience with that recipe if you were still curious.  I let mine dry out for about 5 days before using.  They were a good texture as far as being able to crumble nicely in the hands.  I wasn't as impressed as I'd been hoping for.  There was a modest cover of bubbles in the tub, but they didn't last long at all.  After 5-10 minutes, nothing was left.  This was my first attempt of anything of that nature... but it looks like I'll still be on the lookout for something that will accomplish what I'm looking for.


----------



## jean1C (Jun 24, 2013)

Okay, the ones I made were crumbly from the start. HOWEVER, I did press some into a cupcake mold. So far these have yet to  be tested. 

The stuff that crumbled originally I tried right away...I had a lot of bubbles, and they lasted a long time. The rest of the crumblies I put in a bag and gave to my daughter's friend. 

I found some video on line ( I think YOUTUBE) that used Cocoamide DEA. I looked it up and it is suppose to be a lather booster, but I am not sure how it would work in a bubble bar. 

Then I was at JoANN fabrics the other day and they had miniature springform pans on sale. I bought a pack of three. I am thinking if I can make the recipe and pack it down with a stomper (Like what people use for homemade cabbage or for grinding meat...I may be dating myself here) Maybe tweak the recipe a little, I may have what I am looking for.


----------



## jean1C (Jun 25, 2013)

Made some of these today with a recipe from Southern Soapers on YOUTUBE. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEj-LdrS2mE[/ame]

The springform pan was a bust, BUT, when I loaded about a handful into a PVC pipe then tamped it, and pushed it out, It looks great. That, in and of itself, I consider a success, albeit small.  Now to wait a _few years_ to see if it will dry out in this humidity. I live in CLE and I think the temps are in the low 90's with about 60% humidity today. 

BTW, I scented with WSP "berries and cream"....remember grape Bubble Yum, Bubble gum? I sweat this made my teeth hurt just smelling it.  LOL!

Jean


----------



## Sanguine (Jun 26, 2013)

http://purali.blogspot.be/2010/12/solid-bubble-bath-tutorial.html
This is the recipe i've used multiple times and always worked out great! Hard enough to crumble and I have bubbles for far longer then the time that i sit in my bath. Think the bubble are there for 1.5-2hrs. I did change a few things but its so long ago that i made them, i kinda forgot what i changed


----------



## jean1C (Jun 26, 2013)

Sanquine, 
Thanks for the link, I think I will try this next.


----------



## Robert (Jun 30, 2013)

jean1C said:


> COCOAMIDE DEA? It is suppose to be a lather booster. In addition to glycerine and LSLA...has anyone used this?


I have.  Cocamide DEA is short for coconut fatty acid diethanolamide.  It's one of a class of surfactants called fatty alkanolamides that are used as foam stabilizers and, in liquid compositions, thickeners or jelling agents.  It comes in fairly concentrated form, which is its attraction in tablet formulas, that is, it's not bringing in much water, although in liquid products fatty diethanolamides have been relatively in disfavor for years for a combination of good & bad reasons.

One bad reason is that someone doing some routine screening tests found an increase in tumors in rodents injected with a certain fatty DEA.  This is what you call a fluke.  No good reason to think it would be backed up if investigated further.

A mostly bad reason is that monoethanolamine, and to a lesser extent diethanolamine, which will be present in small proportion as a byproduct in these amides, can undergo reactions with nitrites (and indirectly with nitrates) in the digestive tract to form significantly carcinogenic nitrosamines.  I have no reason to think these pose a particular danger greater than the ethanolamines that are present in our bodies as necessary metabolic intermediates and are even popular these days in dietary supplements.  However, the industry has been scared off enough from the DEAs to switch to an isomer class, MIPAs, as foam stabilizers.  Fool's errand IMO.

The good reason for using something other than a fatty DEA is that they are irritating to eyes and skin compared to other nonionic foam stabilizers, and to other foam stabilizers in general.  The chief nonionic foam stabilizers that fatty alkanolamides were long in competition with are amine oxides, as used for example in Joy and other hand dishwashing detergents.  These actually reduce the irritancy of many anionic surfactants they're mixed with.  However, since they're normally supplied at 30% solution in water, you may not find them convenient to use to make a solid product.

If you do use cocamide DEA (or lauramide DEA or lauric MIPA or others of that nature), you should use only a small amount compared to your chief foaming surfactant -- although some formulators have used a lot successfully.  It's just my recommendation for mildness's sake that if you're using, say, SLSA, that it be present in an actives ratio of about 8:1 to fatty alkanolamide.

If you can work with betaines, I think you've got something even better there than nonionic foam stabilizers, but even more so tricky to formulate in solids.

However, even if you work with the most irritating of these choices, the fatty alkanolamide (such as cocamide DEA), even though it is by many measures more irritating than SLSA, by using it you can still make a product that in practice will be less irritating than using SLSA as the only surfactant.  This apparent paradox is resolved by seeing that the foam stabilizer makes the bubbles last so much longer that you can use much less total surfactant per bath.  The bath water will be sudsier, yet less irritating and less grease cutting.  A lot of these recipes that rely on one surfactant alone, such as the SLSA here, count on making the bath water very soapy.  Since the object is not to get you clean with something like this in the bath water -- a quick swipe with actual soap would work better -- but just to produce foam for your amusement (and prevent bathtub ring when you do use soap), maximizing the ratio of foam to detergency is a good thing.


----------



## jean1C (Jul 2, 2013)

Robert, 
Thank you for your time, that was very insightful. 
To put it simply. Cocoamide DEA is beneficial in and of the fact that it lessens the amount of SLSa that you would need to use. But there are pros and cons to its usage, correct? Therefore if you do use it, it should be in a ratio that makes it about 1/8 or less of the main surfactant you are using,,,in this case SLSa or LAL.


----------



## Robert (Jul 8, 2013)

jean1C said:


> To put it simply. Cocoamide DEA is beneficial in and of the fact that it lessens the amount of SLSa that you would need to use. But there are pros and cons to its usage, correct? Therefore if you do use it, it should be in a ratio that makes it about 1/8 or less of the main surfactant you are using,,,in this case SLSa or LAL.


Correct.  If it's your only available choice for foam stabilizer, then I would say the pro of using it would considerably outweigh the con, because you can then use much less total surfactant per bath for a given amount and persistence of foam.  1:8 is my suggestion.

There are other choices for foam stabilizer than surfactants, or at least small-molecule surfactants.  The way beer foam is stabilized is with carbohydrates, and some use hydroxyethyl cellulose in bath foams for this purpose; it's practically non-irritating, but you have to use a lot.  (Root beer, strangely enough, gets its somewhat persistent head from a very different source than that of beer: root beer has glycosidic surfactants -- saponins such as quillaja.)


----------

