The customers asked for Bath Bombs. Me personally? It's not my thing. The fizz novelty factor is such a transitory thing that it really seems not worth the trouble. But hey, the Agoda gift boxes needed some novelty lower level filler items for festive season and the upcoming Valentine's Day holiday, so why not? They're not hard to make. Are they?
But we didn't just want to make cheap, frivolous bath bombs like everyone else. Firstly, they had to be HEALING MAGNESIUM bath bombs. Secondly, absolutely no GMO corn starch. So we substituted in Thai rice starch, which is incredibly soothing and moisturizing for your skin, Thirdly? Only Pure essential oils instead of harmful synthetic fragrances. And lastly? NO SYNTHETIC COLOURS. Why colour them at all? For customer ease in selecting them, and for our illiterate staff - to make it easier to minimize packaging errors.
The solution? Easy. Natural Herbal Colours.
We planned to make 4 basic colour extracts and to use them to create a variety of SOFT shades that would not stain tubs or skin, but which would enable some of our illiterate staff to easily put the right scented ball in the right package.
And so we got busy.
Aren't they purty?
We extract the crushed plant materials into pure Ethyl Alcohol - again, we prefer to use quality food grade instead of seriously nasty isopropanol - and then strain carefully through commercial lab grade filter paper. The bottle on the left is a Thai herb called Bai Yaa Nang - unbelievably clear, gorgeous green which stains everything. The extract in the middle is turmeric. Yup - yellow nails for a week. And the bottle on the right is an organic beetroot extract.
We had originally started out with pretty blue. From the Blue Butterfly pea, which is really common here in the North of Thailand.
But what did we learn on day one? Blue colour extract does not a blue bath bomb make. The blue colour extract? It made PINK bath bombs. Damn. I nearly wept. Clearly a chemical reaction to the citric acid.
Until the next day. As they dried they went a soft shade of blue. Phew.
But the yellow has been a shock.
First it was way tooooo yellow!
We prayed it would fade as it dried. It did. But it didn't stay yellow and had an ongoing chemical reaction. I wept again.
Turmeric stays yellow in your pantry for YEARS. My bath bombs? After 3 days they're brown. ðŸ˜
And the green. Yikes - the green.
Does ANYthing stay green except my hands? Nope. All of the lovely green extracts - we tried 3 that gave a GORGEOUS liquid result - Bai Yaa Nang (so far the best), Green matcha tea and fresh moringa. What happens to the green bath bomb? It fades to almost white before it's even dry.
We tried adding the green plant powder directly to the ball thinking that would be a winner. But no.
Our gorgeous green moringa bath bomb after 8 hours?
And the brown scum floating to the top after the bath bomb fizzed was NOT appealing.
The red colour seemed so easy. It's roselle season and it gives such a deep red colour in water. Only not in alcohol. And even the pale pink fades to a muted brown after a day.
Sigh.
I think this post for me, tap-tapping away on a Sunday night is a cathartic processing of weeks of professional frustration. I'm resolved that we need to simplify. I mean, WHY NOT go no added colour, like all our other products?? The illiterate staff? We can attach a colour coded sticker to the shrink wrap to step over that one, I guess.
The plus side? I have about 3 years worth of "failed" bath bombs in zip lock bags piled up on my dining room table. 🤣 They FEEL and SMELL divine in the water, and I'm thrilled with the way they leave my skin.
The time has come to flaunt our simple selves and to go PROUDLY PURIST. To claim the moral high ground that no only do we use ONLY pure essential oils and NO GMO nasty starches, but we're sidestepping that icky chemical colour too.
Product development is one heck of a journey, especially when you wan to create pure and organic and with no synthetic nasties. It takes a heck of a lot of time, patience, practice and objective evaluation.
my biggest take home from this process has been that while I will continue to make the bath bombs as gift box items, I think I'm going to simplify even more and make a pure essential oil rice milk magnesium bath powder. The kind that you just pop in a tin and pop on a label. 😆
Loving my herbal journey, even when it meanders....
BlissednBlessed.
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