Functional foot soak tutorial

We haven't made any bath bombs in ages except for once or twice a year as a special gift but with this prompt changes of temperature from some 5-10 degrees to over 30 degrees in just a few days I revived one of my old remedies: Refreshing bath fizzies for a foot bath

If you stay all day long on your feet, go for a long walk or run, you will love these cute and easy to make foot bath bombs. We wear closed shoes in the lab. It means even by 40 degrees outside temperature, our feet are in closed shoes almost all the day. Bathing the feet in a refreshing bath after some 12 hours of work and at least a half an hour of workout or running is a blessing both to the feet and to the brains. You can not imagine how dipping your feet in a tub of cold water (with foot soak) can refresh your mind and cool down your whole body until you've tried a foot bath.

Anyway, these adorable bath fizzies are not only cute and smell good, they have deodorant, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties.

About the ingredients:

The basic of bath fizzies is a blend of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and citric acid in a 2:1 ratio.

Disclaimer: I'm a great opponent to applying baking soda in skin care and I become crazy seeing these DIY deodorant, skin brightening and anti-acne recipes based on baking soda. Bath fizzies or bath soak is the only and only skin care product in which I apply baking soda. This is because baking soda is already dissolved in water and has already reacted with the citric acid as you come into contact with the bath water.

I've used spirulina for the green colour. Keep in mind that spirulina is a very unstable colour specially when exposed to light. You need to completely wrap the bath fizzies if you are going to use spirulina but you are welcome to use any other colourant or herbal powder in your formulation. (Don't worry, the fishy smell of spirulina is completely masked by the peppermint essential oil)

For the cooling, refreshing, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties I've used peppermint essential oil. It is my NO. 1 choice when it comes to refreshing products for the feet.

I've used tamanu oil for its anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties and because the colour suits the peppermint oil, although the colour hardly shows up. You can use any other oil of your choice.

I've added sunflower lecithin to the formulation both as a skin feel enhancer and as an emulsifier for the oil.

In addition to all of these ingredients, I've added a natural deodorant ingredient to the formulation. You can leave it out if you don't like the idea but if you feel your feet would profit from a deodorant (or if you know somebody who badly needs a foot deodorant) that would be a nice functional addition to the formulation.

Rosemary CO2 extract is used as an antioxidant to slow down the oxidation of tamanu oil and an anitimicrobial plant extract blend is added to boost the antimicrobial properties of peppermint extract and tamanu oil.

Formulation:

Phase A

Sodium bicarbonate  63,2%

Citric acid  31,6%

Phase B

sunflower lecithin  0,5%

Organic tamanu oil  2,4%

Organic peppermint essential oil 1,0%

anitimicrobial plant extract 0,1%

Rosemary CO2 extract 0,1%

Dermosoft decalact deo 0,5%

Phase C

Spirulina powder 0,6%

Procedure:

1- In a large bowl blend phase A (don't forget your safety goggles and your gloves)

2- Blend phase B in a beaker (it doesn't look quite pretty but don't be disappointed)

3- Add phase B to phase A. The first impression is not very appealing

4- Blend the wet and dry phases together. The ugly brown colour disappears (you have your gloves on)

5- Massage and knead the blend in your hands and check the consistency

Check the consistency of the blend by pressing a clump in your hand. This blend (above photo) is still a little bit too dry. You can add (gradually) a little bit of oil or lecithin to the blend.

Although it might not be quite obvious from the photo, this blend (above photo) has a much better consistency. You learn to judge the consistency after you've ruined your first 10 batches .

You can check the consistency by pressing a small amount into one of your mold cavities. If the consistency is all right, you can almost immediately push a well formed fizzy out of the mold.

This leaf was presses immediately out of the mold and we decided that the consistency is all right.

For this project, we used milky way and acry molds.

6- At this point, we added the spirulina powder. You can add it to the whole blend. We divided our blend (eye balling) into two parts and added the spirulina to one part.

7- Here you need some imagination, patience and artistic creativity (These are Swetlana's characteristics not mine). Press your blend into the form. You can press two colours side by side or layer after layer according to the mold and your imagination.

The more you press, the firmer the bath fizzies.

8- Although you can almost immediately push the bath fizzies out of the cavities, we recommend you leave them overnight.

9- Push them out of the mold cavities and leave them at ambient temperature for another 24 hours. (If you work in a humid lab you need to wrap them and pack them immediately)

Every single piece has a unique optic depending on how you blended both colors.

Now its your turn to make some refreshing bath fizzies.

If you're inspired by this tutorial feel free to send us your photos and comment either per mail or to our Facebook page. If you post any photos on Instagram, don't forget to tag @SkinChakra.

BeHappy and have fun