Aerik Arkadian

Have your baths been boring lately? Don’t worry, after today, you’ll never have to worry about that problem again. With a combination of color correspondences, aromatherapy, and intention, spiritual bath bombs are a great way to put some magick out into the world.

Maybe you want to make a yellow one with lemongrass oil for happiness, or a blue one with lavender oil for calm, or a red one with rose oil for passion. Or maybe you want to make all of them. Go ahead, I’m not going to stop you. The options are pretty much limitless.

Supplies

To get started, you will need a few things. There are a few items that you might not have laying around the house, so it might require a shopping trip. Luckily, everything is pretty affordable.

The main dry ingredients, which make up the bulk of your bath bomb…

Equipment:

• Large mixing bowl
• Molds (metal spherical ones work well)
• Jar with a lid

Main Ingredients

• Baking Soda – 1 cup
• Epsom Salt – 1/2 cup (unscented)
• Corn Flour or Corn Starch – 1/2 cup
• Citric Acid – 1/2 cup (powdered)
• Water – 1 tbsp
• Oil – 2 tbsp (Sweet Almond, Coconut, Jojoba, etc)
• (Optional) Some sort of emulsifier, like Polysorbate 20

Magick Ingredients:

• Essential Oil – 2 tsp (lavender, grapefruit, eucalyptus, or anything else you like)
• Food Coloring – a few drops
• Powdered coloring, like Mica
• Dried flowers or herbs – sparingly
• Intention

If you try really hard and get lots of color-coordinating items, you might just be able to take a picture like this one day

All of the “magickal” ingredients are technically optional. You can use however many of them you want and in any combination; however, most of them should be used rather sparingly with the exception of intention — don’t skip on the intention.

Oh, and try to remember that a lot of these ingredients are probably sold for cheaper at your local grocery store than they are online.

The Method

If you were to combine all of the “Main Ingredients” by themselves, you would have a plain, unscented, ball of stuff that fizzes in water. That’s pretty boring. Keep in mind, again, that with the “Magick Ingredients,” a little goes a long way. You typically want to just tint your water, not dye your body or the walls of your bathtub.

Step 1 – Mix Cornstarch, Baking Soda, and Epsom Salt

Combine all of your dry ingredients, with the exception of the citric acid, in a large mixing bowl. Definitely do not add the citric acid at this point.

Step 2 – Mix Liquid Ingredients

Combine all of the liquid ingredients in jar, close the lid, and shake it. The more intensely you shake things up, the better you’ll mix the oil around, so don’t skimp on the effort. Since we’re applying a good amount of physical energy here, it’s a good time to concentrate on your intentions as well. If you’ve got a clever rune or chant prepared, feel free to throw it in.

Step 3 – Mix Everything Together

First, take your shook up liquid ingredients and pour it into the dry ingredients. I like to add about half of it, mix things up, and slowly add the rest to make sure it’s achieving a good consistency — your end result should be feel something like wet sand at the beach. It’s best to use your hands — really get in there and stir things around until the color and oils have been evenly spread through the dry ingredients. Once you’ve got a good mix, dump in the citric acid. Don’t be alarmed — it’s going to fizz a little bit because: science. That’s normal. Continue to mix everything until it has reached a nice, somewhat crumbly consistency.

Step 4 – Press into Molds

Pack your molds as tightly as possible. I like to use the back of a metal dining spoon to push everything in, then a little bit of angled pressure to gently slide it out of the mold. There is a bit of an art to this that I clearly haven’t mastered because it’s very easy to crumble things at this point. It’s a good idea to overfill the mold.

Step 5 – Let Dry

Technically, you’re supposed to remove everything from your molds and let it dry overnight on a baking sheet, wax paper, or some other convenient location. If you have some that won’t shed the mold, that’s okay, too… just let it dry and you should be able to pop it out in the morning. After they’ve rested for about a day, they’re ready to use.

Step 6 – Meditate and Enjoy

Alright, look, this is not a recipe for mundane bath bombs. These are supposed to be magickal bath bombs full of intention. When you use one, try to separate this act from a mundane bath as much as possible. Perhaps consider taking a quick shower first to actually wash your body. Once you’re physically clean, draw a warm bath and toss in your spiritual bath bomb. Meditate while soaking in the water and accept the fact that your intentions have been released into the universe.

Storage

Because these bath bombs react with water due to science, they will be destroyed by moisture. If you live in a humid environment, eventually they’ll fizzle out. I’d recommend keeping them in an airtight container. Mason jars work well for this purpose.

A Note on Sizing and Molds

I don’t know what y’all are doing in your baths, but I find that those gigantic, baseball-sized bath bombs are total overkill. I have small round molds and I find that I typically prefer to just use half of the mold as opposed to the whole thing.

Play around and experiment with things! There’s no rules. As long as you can get it out of the mold without breaking the bath bomb, then it works!

Suggestions

Using basic correspondences and some simple colors that we could make with food coloring, let’s take a look at some of the options for magickal combinations…

• Red: Passion or Romance, just add some rose oil
• Orange: Willpower, just add some cedarwood oil
• Yellow: Happiness, just add anything you think smells good or grapefruit oil
• Green: Prosperity, just add some sweet orange oil
• Blue: Relaxation, just add some lavender oil
• Purple: Psychic Stuff, just add some chamomile oil
• White (no color added): Purification, just add some eucalyptus oil

That’s off the top of my head. I just went through the color wheel. Lots of those oils can be used for multiple purposes and you could also use them in combination with others.

Food Grade Ingredients

Not all ingredients are created equal. Some of them, especially colorants, are going to come with a number of different ratings. A cosmetic grade rating means that something is approved for external use, while a food grade rating means that something is approved for internal use. “Food safe” is usually the safest.

This is more of an issue if you’re selling your bath bombs, but since prolonged exposure to sensitive parts of the body can cause a reaction, it’s always something to keep in mind. Use the same common sense precautions as you would when testing any product on the body — start with a small amount first to make sure there are no allergies.

Conclusions

Go ye henceforth and enjoy creating fizzy, pleasantly smelling things.

If you’ve got a cool mix magickal idea for a bath bomb, please share it in the comments so the world can benefit.

Right, right. Here we are again with the whole fine print thing. If you can take just a short break from relaxing in your bath, I’d like to point out two things to you. The first thing is that there are lots of Amazon affiliate links on this page. If you use one of those links to make a purchase, Amazon will pay me a small commission. The second thing is that if you take a slightly less lazy option and actually go to a physical store, some of those ingredients will probably cost you significantly less money. I won’t make any commission that way, but what do I care?