Wild Science: From Baking Soda to Bath Balls

“What are we going to do?” is normally the first question when I come to kindergarten to pick up Amalja. Half an hour later she was already stirring a mixture so wildly that she took a soak in the ingredients before we managed to run the first bath. Meanwhile, I figured out why in a child’s world of Wild Science Bath Balls Making there is more protection equipment then actual ingredients.

You need:

Set of Wild Science Bath Bomb Factory (available in Direndaj stores), which are: baking soda, corn starch, citric acid, glycerin, vanilla fragrance, red and blue paint, wooden sticks for mixing, two spoons for measuring, measuring cup, gloves and goggles for protection, gift bags and stickers, molds. To further protect the work surface you will also need a tray and wet cloth.

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Procedure is very simple:

Mix 4 parts / teaspoons of baking soda with two parts corn starch, add two parts of citric acid, 10 drops of glycerin, 1 drop of paint and one drop of vanilla fragrance. Ingredients must be kneaded together, ensuring a not too crumbly mixture. If it is crumbly, add one drop of glycerin and half a teaspoon of cornstarch. There is enough mixture to fill three molds from aforementioned quantities, but it is better not to fill them all at once, otherwise one of the bath balls will highly likely fall apart when you pore it from the mold. We managed to make a simple bath design mold (heart-shaped), but after a few tries we created a flower mold (butterfly-shape always crumbled). Leave the bath balls outside for a couple of hours to dry out in the air. These are the first ones we made and they were quite fragile, so we carefully placed them in a gift bag only after a few days.

Together we were making the bath balls for one hour and then the scientist, Amalja, immediately wanted to become the testing agent. I continued making the balls on my own and used all of the ingredients, while still testing the colour mixture to create new colourful bath balls using ice-cube molds as well as trying to make new shapes. I failed in both.

This creative toy is a great gift for making large quantities of bath balls, e.g. for New Year’s gifts. It is more economical to buy all the necessary ingredients in the food stores.