Expert: Stephanie - 8/11/2006

Question
I would love to know how to make bath salts  fizzies lip balm ,soaps, I like making or should i say baking at christmas time and giving homemade cookies , this could be somthing so much better as a gift , Please send info on making these items. Thank you so much

Answer
Hello,

That is quite a wide range of things for me to cover! May I first start by recommending a book called 'Melt and Pour Soapmaking' by Marie Browning. The title is actually decietful as it covers making nearly all these things. Its where I got my start and helped me greatly.

I'll just go over the basics to start, and then if there is an area you are more interested in you can always send a more specific follow up questions.

Lets start with some general basics. First off, you will need to invest in either fragrance oils or essential oils. Essential oils are natural, fragrance oils are synthetic. You can not use perfume or potpouri oils to scent your bath products. You will also need some soap safe colors. Food coloring or candle coloring will not work and could dye your skin! I will be more specific about both these areas in my descriptions of each of the areas you asked about.

How about bath salts. Bath salts can contain table salt, sea salt, epsom salt and/or baking soda. Any combination of the above works great too. Some people also like to add some powdered, cosmetic clays to their bath salts. The trick to making salts, is to mix all your ingredients (wet and dry stuff) then store it in an air tight container for a week and shake it every day. This way they won't clump. After a week it should be safe to package them how you want.

Bath fizzies are made with baking soda and citric acid. You mix this and anything else you are including, then spritz it with witch hazel or rose water until it is damp enough that it will stick together, then you pack it hard into a mold, pop it out and let them harden overnight. If you over spritz with the witch hazel, they will expand because it is moisture that causes them to fizz!

Lip balm is a harder topic to cover, as everyones recipe is different. As a start, I recommend getting some premixed lip balm base, which you simply melt in your microwave and add color/flavor to. For lip balms, it is very important that you use flavor oils, not fragrance oils. Flavor oils are edible and safe for use on lips. Also, you will need to get lip safe colorant, if you want to color them.

Soaps can be made in three different techniques- melt and pour, rebatch and cold process. Melt and pour is the easiest as you simply cut up a base and melt it in your microwave, then add color, fragrance and anything else. Rebatch involves shredding soap base, melting it in a double boiler then adding your base. You can't make soaps as fancy as you can with melt and pour, but it can be all natural. Cold process is not recommended for beginners as it involves a complicated process and corrosive lye.

For any of your soaping/lip balm ect. supplies I recommend www.brambleberry.com. They have everything you will need to get started!

I hope I have helped. If you can get that book I think it will be able to cover specifics even better. Let me know if you need any further help.

Good-luck,
From Stephanie