Bubble Bar Adventures Part Deuce

I’m backkkkkkkk. Imagine me saying that in some sneaky creepy Chucky doll way. Or maybe I should have gone with vmak’s back alright! But you would only get the reference if you know the Backstreet Boys song that line comes from.

After my epic failure with the SoapQueen’s solid bubble bar recipe, I told myself that I am fully capable of making these bars. I have a freaking college degree. I can make bubble bars!

I set out to find another recipe to try.

My journey brought me to Bonnie’s recipe from the Good Earth Spa. Her recipe uses the same ingredients as the SoapQueen’s but in different ratios which works better for me. The other thing I like about her recipe that is it uses less Cream of Tartar which is one of the most expensive ingredients to the recipe.
Last time, my bubble bars failed because the amount of glycerin used. I didn’t really understand how glycerin could be the complete downfall of my bars until I did some research. Glycerin is a humectant which attracts and retains moisture in layman’s terms and explains the sweaty bubble bars. The outrageous amount of glycerin was busy soaking up all the moisture in the air and trapping it inside my bubble bars. That bastard!

With that all in mind, Bonnie’s recipe seemed like it would produce better results due to the higher amount of corn starch in the recipe. Corn starch helps absorb any moisture that may be drawn in by the glycerin.

I found her recipe on various forums and figured I would give it a whirl. You can watch her video/recipe here:

1/3 Cup Cornstarch
1/3 Cup Cream of Tartar
1 Cup Baking Soda
1 Cup- 1 1/2 Cups SLSA (Sodium lauryl sulfoacetate)
1 Tablespoon Tapioca Starch
1/3 Cup – 1/2 cup Vegetable Glycerine
1 Tablespoon Moisturizing Oil
2 teaspoons, more or less Fragrance or Essential Oil
Colorant of your choice.

Before I started to bubble bar adventure part deuce, I watched the video just in case there were any special tricks or tips I should be aware of which actually helped a lot. The video gives you an idea of what kind of dough consistency to look for. I noticed on both the SoapQueen and Good Earth Spa recipes that there is no set amount of glycerin to be used and that there is a varying range, so seeing the texture in the video gives you an idea of what you want to achieve.

The steps are pretty simple. Mix your dry and wet ingredients separate and then together. Squish it all together until you get a dough ball that you can mold and cut up. Sounds fairly self-explanatory, right? It kinda is and kinda not.

Since I had ruined my first batch with too much glycerin, I was pretty reluctant to just dump in the full amount of glycerin and hope for the best. I found the best way is to start off with a small amount of glycerin that is fairly close to the amount in the recipe and slowly add in more until you reach the desired texture. SoapQueen’s recipe seemed to look for a wetter, squishier dough while Bonnie’s appeared more crumbly. Personally, I prefer the crumblier dough from Bonnie’s recipe. It’s moldable and you can rest assured that the amount of glycerin isn’t too high.

I got my dry ingredients and wet ingredients measured out minus the full amount of glycerin and started mixing it all together. My dough was too crumbly with just the 1/3cup of glycerin so I slowly added in 5ml/1 tsp of glycerin at a time until I got a pillowy but drier texture in the dough. I ended up using less than ½ cup which is why I don’t like to just dump it all in. I could have ended up with another over-glycerined bubble loaf. Rolling the dough out was easier this time since the dough was drier.

If you are going to attempt the swirl bubble bar design, I suggest you get the colored layers flattened to a nice thin layer otherwise the swirl will look more like a color blob with a little dot of color in the center. Another tip to keep in mind when rolling the dough out for the swirl, is that you want to shape the dough so it’s like a rectangle. You want to roll the dough on the shorter side. The longer edge of the dough is what helps create the swirls. The more times you roll the dough over equals out to how many rings of swirls you will get. Rolling the dough thin allows for more rings.
As you can see from my photo, I had to learn the hard way. I didn’t roll it out thin enough so that I would get a decent swirl. My OCD kicked in and I skillfully cut apart the bars and reswirled each one individually.
It ended up giving a smoother finish on the surface versus that texture look when first cut. Some people prefer the texture, some like it smooth. You can achieve a smoother cut texture if you allow your bubble bar log to rest for a while before you cut into it.

I made two batches using this recipe – one using 1 ½ cups of SLSa and the other using just 1 cup. Both batches have been drying for a few days now and look a million times better than my first attempt. The outside of the bars have hardened up with just a negligible amount of glycerin sweat on the bottom. It probably is just the humidity in the air since it’s been raining on and off. Sprinkling baking soda on your surface where the bars dry will help absorb any glycerin sweat. They are nowhere near the blobby mess I had before.
I can tell the bars haven’t fully cured because there is still some give in the center when I push in. I’m hoping these ends up curing to a Lush like texture where it’s hard enough to with stand normal interaction but soft enough that you can still crumble it into the bath. Right now, I would probably be satisfied since I could crumble it into the bath without a problem, but the exterior isn’t as hard as I would prefer. I’m going to give them another day or so before testing in the bath.

-vmak