So my wife has recently started making bath bombs for herself and we ran into a problem. It seems when she uses the bath bomb the oil and color stay at the top of the water. Anywhere that line of colored oil touches leave a mark on the tub or body. It comes off with soap, but what are we doing wrong. Is it to much coloring, too much oil? We made a batch with coconut oil and one with olive oil.
Help with Bath Bombs
- Thread starter tpopcaz
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Oils and some colorants don't mix with water. You can use emulsifiers/surfactants like polysorbate 20 or 80 that can help combine them with the water. You can also exclude oils as a whole and use rubbing alcohol or witch hazel as the primary wetting ingredient. Adding a bit of oil with this might be fine as well. There are water based colors as well. What kind of colorants are you using?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EB3JXO0/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20. These are the ones we used that stained everything.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M7RC9EE/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20. These we just ordered to try.
Any site that sells colors that mix well with oils?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M7RC9EE/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20. These we just ordered to try.
Any site that sells colors that mix well with oils?
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Mica colorants often leaves a ring around the tub. Polysorbate 80 is definitely needed at rates of 1-6%. They sure are my favorite colorants though and love the shimmer they leave when the bath bomb was "color brushed". There are liquid pigments as well.
The problem is both the usage of the oils and the type of colorant. They both won't mix with water. Either you change the colorant to a known water based one and stop using oils or add some polysorbate 80. Websites like nurture soap, brambleberry and wholesale supplies plus have some colorants that can mix in water but I've never used them before. They also carry polysorbate 80.
NOLAGal
Well-Known Member
Simple solution is to buy polysorbate 80 and add some with your wet ingredients ( https://www.brambleberry.com/Polysorbate-80-P4438.aspx ) only $5.50 a pound which will be plenty unless if you looking to make 100's then get more. It will make your oil mix with water and should resolve the color stain line, you wont see the oil floating on top of the water in tub nor left on the bottom of the tub when the water drains. Also wont have a big slip hazard either. I went through the same exact thing when starting. I used a recipe I found online to make bath bombs and they didn't explain to use an emulsifiers like poly 80 so I couldn't understand why I had floating oil and slippery tub. It's a simple fix, just need to add one more ingredient to the mixture.
