Well I'm loath to admit this, but over a year ago I had a friend ask me for recommendations on bubble bath products. It's shameful that it's taken me so long to post this but truthfully, I wasn't a bubble bath person. That is, until I started taking bubble baths...
This winter has been atrociously cold in New England and bubble baths have been a nice way to get warm, relax and soothe my achey muscles from working out. I wanted bath products that were natural-ish and had a lovely smell. They also had to be bubbly... I mean, that's the main component to a bubble bath after all.
I'm now obsessed with Library of Flowers Bubble Bath in Wildflower and Fern. The scent is a subtle, clean blend of flowers that comes in a gorgeous (large) container. It also bubbles fabulously.
So, even though I'm an amateur in the bubble bath department, I'm ready to try more brands and experiment. What are some of your favorite bubble bath products?
I received Dead Sea salts that have lavender added in from Whole Foods as a gift, & I love it too, good for aching muscles. I also love Lush's bath bombs, they have nice scents & fun for kids, as they change colors in the tub too!
ReplyDeleteKK
Thanks KK! I have some lavender salts too that I have yet to try. I know that the Lush products are really popular, so I'll have to try that too. Thanks for the suggestions :)
DeleteMy favorite was my own -- http://users.bestweb.net/~robgood/lather.html . Too bad it never got to be a $-making concern. However, it was sort-of copied, first by Kirk's liquid soap, staying just outside my patent claims as long as the patent was in force, and then by Calgon bubble bath once my patent expired. I did manage to get someone to license my formula for a brief while for foam dancing, and others got it on the retail market in a VERY small way. I dumped the last of a 100-gal. batch in 2016 after it'd gotten old and degraded.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to try making a preferred version of it yourself, I recommend:
4 volumes 40% diammonium lauryl sulfosuccinate solution
2 vols. 30% actives lauramidopropyl betaine
1 vol. 30% actives palmitamidopropyl betaine
2 vols. 40% disodium laureth-3 sulfosuccinate
Mix the betaines with each other, and the sulfosuccinates with each other, then thoroughly mix the mixtures, which will jel at first but eventually smooth out. The preservatives the solutions are supplied with are sufficient for the mixture, and the betaine solutions are sufficient to buffer it with no pH adjustment needed.
Be careful perfuming it, though, as many essential or fragrance oils -- the same ones known to soapmakers to speed up saponification -- will catalyze the breakdown of the sulfosuccinate esters. Lemon verbena did that. The mixture has a faint odor on its own that many people really like but disgusted a few -- which is likely to be the case with perfume too; I'd describe its odor as fatty/soapy, chocolatey, and citrusy, with a note contributed by ammonia but not an acrid one.
It's not a great flash foamer, but can be readily foamed up the way children love doing it, by splashing hard with their hands. Once the foam's produced, it lasts a long time even when played with. It's a dense, heavy foam rather than a light, large, fluffy one. It's more skin softening than plain water or soap & water, and the version above with its palmitamidopropyl betaine is especially skin softening. Have fun.