Bercaw Caroline - Fizz boom bath!: learn to make your own bath bombs, body scrubs, and more!

It was December of 2012. We were ten and twelve years old, it was winter break, and we were bored. (Snapchat did not yet exist; you get it.) We had always loved using fizzing bath bombs, but there were a few big problems with the ones we bought at the mall. First of all, each one contained over a dozen ingredients, most of which we couldnt pronounce. They also had heavy, greasy additives that left our tub full of gunk and made us feel dirtier after our baths than when we started. And when a bomb finished dissolving and we drained the tub, we were usually left with sticky substances like seaweed, often mixed with a foamy muck that stuck to our skin and made us feel like something out of Stranger Things. We would usually have to take a shower after each bath to get clean! But we still loved the idea of a fun, fizzing sphere that filled the room with amazing fragrances and the bath with just enough (but not too many) moisturizing oils.

WERE HERE TO TAKE THE MYSTERY OUT OF BATH AND BODY RECIPES AND GIVE YOU ALL THE TOOLS YOU NEED

So it seemed like a good idea to try and make our own bath bombs. We hit the internet, looked for the least complicated recipe we could find, and then came up with the wild idea of putting a little surprise in each bath bomb so wed have something fun left at the end. We found most of the ingredients we needed at our local grocery store, except for the citric acid, which our mom helped us order online. We scoured the kitchen for measuring cups and mixing bowls, arranged them on an old blanket in our basement, and waited excitedly for our citric acid to arrive so we could begin our grand experiment. (For all the ingredients youll need to make bath bombs and more, see .)

Once all our ingredients and supplies were in place, we spent an entire afternoon carefully strategizing, reading, measuring, mixing, and molding, and when the dust cleared (yes, making bath bombs is dusty), we had seven and a half lopsided, lumpy, crumbly, half fizzed-out bath bombs. We were pretty proud of ourselves.

SOON, OUR FRIENDS WERE ASKING IF THEY COULD USE OUR PRODUCTS, SO WE GAVE THEM AWAY TO ANYONE WHO WOULD TRY THEM.

The only thing more exciting than making those bath bombs was using them. After we let them dry overnight, we won the award for Earliest Bath Ever by hopping in the tub at 6:00 a.m., because we just had to see if our efforts would pay off. You can probably imagine how psyched we were when our cracked, oddball creations fizzed away under the warm water of our bath, releasing a lavender fragrance and turning the water a pretty blue. With that first, fateful experiment, we were hooked.

Over the next several months, we spent our free time testing out new bath bomb recipes, botching plenty of batches, trying out all kinds of color combos, and even moving on to other bath and body treats like sugar scrubs, salt soaks, and face masks. We had a whole room in the basement to ourselves, and our parents had only one solid rule: Whatever mess you make, clean it up. Soon, our friends were asking if they could use our products, so we gave them away to anyone who would try them. We even sold some to our grandma! Not too long after that, our friend Dialyn encouraged us to sign up for a local art fair that had a special section for kids. It cost about $25 for a tablewhich to us was a lifes savings at the timebut we figured, Why not?

We decided to focus on bath bombs and spent all summer making about 150 of them in preparation for the art fair. We gave each bath bomb its own name, color, and fragrance and put a surprise inside. The Cake Bomb was white with rainbow-colored sprinkles, had an almond buttercream fragrance, and contained an eraser shaped like a piece of cake. We made a red Cherry Bomb that smelled like maraschino cherries and had a little plastic cherry inside. We made an F Bomb that smelled like lavender and contained a calming message. (Our parents vetoed that one immediately, but we convinced them the F stood for frustration, and the F Bomb calms your frustrations. They reluctantly let us include it in our product line.) One of our favorites wasand still isthe Earth Bomb, which has blue, green, and white swirls, smells like a sea breeze, and has a cute little toy ocean creature inside. We decided to donate some of the money from the sale of the Earth Bomb to organizations that clean up the worlds oceans. (Today, the Earth Bomb is our top seller and weve donated tens of thousands of dollars to the cause.)

Originally, we molded our bath bombs using a snowball maker we found lying around the house. We decided to pile our bath bombs into black, gallon-sized plastic buckets purchased at the dollar store, and we planned to display them unpackaged, so people could pick them up and smell them. Each time we made a sale, we would carefully place each bomb in a clear cellophane bag and tie it with a black ribbon. The finishing touch was a tag featuring the name of the bomb and our brand name: Da Bomb Bath Fizzers.

We were really nervous on the first day of the art fair. Would anyone want to buy our products? Would all of our hard work pay off? Or would we have to drag this 840-pound load of bath bombs back to our house at the end of the day?

To our utter amazement, before we even finished setting up our table, people started crowding around, asking lots of questions, and buying our products. Our idea of setting the bombs out unpackaged worked great, because the fragrances filled the air around our table, and people flocked to see what smelled so good. By the end of the day we were exhausted, and we had sold out! We couldnt believe it.

Despite our success, we still didnt think of Da Bomb as anything other than a hobby. When the art fair rolled around the following year, we decided to participate again. At one point during that second fair, a local salon owner named Mitchell Wherley stopped by and purchased a few of our bath bombs. The following day, he visited us again, bought a dozen more bombs, and asked us if he could sell our products in his salons! We suddenly realized our hobby had the potential to become a real business. Not only did he place an order, he placed a reorder. And another. And another. Then a second local retailer requested our bath bombs. And everyone kept asking if we had a website. So, with a lot of help from our parents, we created our very own website in April of 2015: DaBombFizzers.com. Then, we officially became Da Bomb, LLC.