Bath Bomb Blues; or how I almost lost my mind while trying a simple craft project!

With Steve busy working on our ongoing renovations, I found myself at an unusual loose end. Given than the main work on the gite now entailed plumbing in a bathroom, it was not something I could help with. Well not if we actually wanted it to work!

Hard at work in the gite bathroom

However, I like to be busy. I think that’s fair to say. I also like to try new things. Someone once laughed at me and said they had never known anyone who had had so many different jobs in their life. To date;

Exercise jockey in a national hunt racing yard

Riding instructress

Aldi checkout gal (when you had to memorise ALL the prices)

Cleaner

Bar work

Classroom assistant

Residential social worker

Foster carer

Qualified social worker

Singer

Author

I've always loved horses

What can I say? I have a low boredom threshold and like new challenges and adventures.

My most recent project! My latest novel

How, in my wildest dreams I thought that making bath bombs might be a good idea, I do not know. For a start, I have no, and I mean NO artistic talent for this kind of thing, whatsoever.

None.

Seriously.

None.

When my poor children had to produce a homemade craft project for school, my stomach would cramp into a knot and I would break out into a sweat and hide in the corner sobbing and clutching a bottle of Chardonnay, but they always found me.  

Reluctantly, I would gather the requisite materials; paper, cardboard, glue, glitter, paint, fairy liquid bottle, nitro glycerine etc. I would then have sleepless nights as I worried about how utterly pathetic my little moppets’ creations would be in comparison with the other children’s ringingly successful and startlingly professional looking pieces, which quite frankly looked as if they had been assembled by Leonardo Da Vinci himself. I would slink shame faced into the classroom with my feeble, lop sided effort, which was more sellotape than anything else, while the teachers hid behind their hands and tried not to point and laugh.

I’m still having therapy.

Anyway, back to the bath bombs. I think it began when I developed an interest in aromatherapy and the use of essential oils. For those of you that know me, I am an all or nothing sort of person and once my interest in something is piqued, I have to go all out to embrace it (The words “all or nothing” in this case can be replaced by the words “particularly stupid”).

There are no half measures for people born under the sign of Capricorn!

In the case of the aromatherapy, it entailed buying a ridiculously large collection of oils; not just any oils you understand, but “essential” oils. I think they call them essential to make sure that people like me buy them; I mean, they’re essential right?

A few of my oh so essential oils; how do you like my egg box ha ha

Many of these oils are impossibly expensive. I appreciate that the amount of jasmine it takes to make one drop of oil equates to the size of a small country, but really, £8.99 for a 2ml bottle – pu-lease. That was one even I didn’t buy! Once you have the oil of course, you have to have the carrier oil. I discovered that the carrier oils are almost as varied as the essential oils themselves and have wonderful tempting names such as peach kernel, and essence of avocado. So, having added a good half dozen carrier oils to the ever growing list of essential oils, to my basket at Amazon, I hit the “checkout” button and almost passed out. What? What do you mean £156.98? For a few miniscule bottles of oil. Clearly, this would not do, and so I set about pruning my basket until I felt confident that I had avoided bankruptcy (for now).

The equally essential carrier oils

Said oils then arrived, and I spent a delightful hour oohing and aahing and the truly marvellous scents and almost magical properties of these unassuming little bottles.

Next of course, I had to have a diffuser. Well naturally I did! Did you expect anything less? In fact, I have to admit, I bought two J. These tiny wonders of beautifulness, which change colour every few seconds, and quietly emit a polite atomised mist of scented loveliness were quite frankly, irresistible.  Really I should be on commission as, such was my enthusiasm, I talked more than one of my friends into buying them too!

My precious light up diffuser

Then there were the books; I needed books, and not Kindle books as you can’t flick back and forth easily with the Kindle. Thankfully Amazon have 2^nd hand books, and so for a change, I managed to get an utter bargain in bagging 2 books for 0.01p each J Postage however, was another matter but I managed to convince myself that the books only cost 0.01p, as long as I ignored the postage costs. 

I think it’s called ostrich syndrome.

The more I read about the wonders of essential oils, the more interested I became, so much so that I looked into becoming an aromatherapist. Of course I did - remember, no half measures! Realising however, that renovating a house, caring for a high maintenance husband and an even higher maintenance dog, whilst at the same time trying to write another book was possibly enough for the moment, this bright idea had to be shelved (for now). 

Instead I continued to read about all the endless things you could do with essential oils, and one of them was to make bath bombs.

With unfettered excitement, I imagined the satisfaction of making my own bath bomb Christmas gifts for friends and family. I allowed myself a moment to smile inwardly as I pictured the amazed looks on their faces as they marvelled at my handiwork and exclaimed at how very clever I was. I tried to push aside the more realistic conclusion, which took me back to the pitying glances and whispered comments of the teachers at my daughters’ school when they saw the latest offering for the craft project.

Not one to be deterred, and uttering the (later to be regretted) words of “How hard can it be”? I set about Googling “How to make your own bath bombs”. Thankfully I remembered to put the word “bath” in there, thus avoiding a raid by the French police.

“Aha” I said, grimacing, as I read the alarmingly long list of necessary ingredients and duly logged back into Amazon for another round of totally unnecessary shopping. I had not appreciated the seemingly endless components of a simple fizzy bath bomb.  “WHAT? “Why do I need citric acid? Surely anything with the word acid in it can’t be good for adding to a bath”? I said, thinking immediately of John Haigh, the acid bath murderer. However, it appeared, after a LOT more Googling, that citric acid was indeed a “must have” ingredient, and so into the Amazon basket it went.

Sigh.

As well as the citric acid, you need Epsom salt, bicarbonate of soda, cornflour, food colouring, oil (ha, got that) and essential oils (yep) and you have the basics of a bath bomb.

Oh but wait; how do I mould them?

More Googling.

Aha, clearly I need to order some bath bomb moulds as fashioning one with my bare hands wasn’t really an option.

Finally, all my ingredients were assembled in one place; and so to work.

To say that my first effort was a total disaster is an understatement. I followed a recipe from one of the many Internet sites, which had obviously been put there to drive people like me over the edge. The amount of water was clearly excessive, though in my inexperienced naivety I had no idea how little liquid was actually required.

I added the water with a kind of gung ho abandon, but before I could begin to “Whisk until the mixture forms clumps”, it took on a life force of its own and within seconds resembled a dangerous alien life form. It foamed and fizzed and expanded at an alarming rate.

“This can’t be right” I said with amazing intelligence and insight.

I tried to ignore the extreme chemical reaction, which was taking place in front of my eyes, along with the choking cough I had developed due to the large amount of (undoubtedly dangerous) powered elements floating about in the air. Instead I focused on the next instruction, which was, “Pick up a small amount of the mixture and press into the mould”

I observed the “mixture” which was way beyond the stage of forming clumps and knew that in reality it was a lost cause. I gritted my teeth and muttered a lot, while trying to pick some of it up, but the blasted stuff was so assured of its own powers that it defied handling. It oozed from between my fingers and all but laughed out loud at me.

Never one to give up, I duly “pressed it into the mould” which had cost me a tenner plus P&P. I swiftly clapped on the other half of the mould and held tight.

The mixture emboldened by its success in failing, demonstrated a quite remarkable strength as it slowly and unbelievably pushed the sides of the mould apart.  I held on for a few more seconds before I acknowledged defeat and threw the whole lot bad temperedly into the sink accompanied by a lot of unprintable words.

I then realised that this was not as easy as I had anticipated and did what I should have done in the first place; I watched a You Tube tutorial.

Oh my life.

The first one I found was astonishing in its annoyingness. A bright breezy “mom” who not only had the perfect life in her perfect house; she also had perfect children, perfect teeth, and could also apparently make the perfect bath bomb, while looking immaculate and making no mess whatsoever. 

She brought out the worst in me and I had to switch her off, while fighting off waves of envy and muttering,"bitch" under my breath.

Eventually, I found a more acceptable, less irritating video, took notes and tried again.

The results were more pleasing, but the first try wasn’t quite a success. Too much liquid again, which meant that the bath bombs refused to leave the safety of their moulds. Undeterred, I tried yet again. This time, I had the brainwave of adding the liquid via a fine atomiser.

RESULT

I never thought I would hear the words, “Yey it’s clumping” come out of my mouth, but they did, as clump it did. I quickly stuffed it into the moulds, squished the 2 sides together and prayed it wouldn’t escape again. Nope, all seemed calm. Tentatively, I tried removing one half of the mould …….. it came away without argument and I found myself mocking the mixture in triumph. “Ha, not so fizzy now are we? That showed you” and other inane comments, bourn of the lunacy this project had evoked in me.

Project bath bomb!

My kitchen now resembled some sort of dodgy amateur cocaine factory with white powder spread across every available surface, but I had done it. I had won!

White powder all over the place!

And so there it was, my lovely round bath bomb, which of course I shall never actually use. I shall look at it, smell it and marvel at its loveliness.

Come on, admit it - it's good

I shall also try to ignore the fact that it cost me approximately £134.78 to make and I could have bought one for £2.50 in Lush!

C’est la vie

Freya xx

Why I Deactivated My Twitter Account - Breaking Bad

Social media; with the exception of a rare few, who perhaps have been living on an unknown yet Internet free planet, we all know what it is and we all use it on a daily basis. How many of you click on Facebook even before you’ve said good morning to your family? Those little red notifications mean that the things we’ve posted have been read and approved by our peers using the ubiquitous “like” button, or should I say the like, love, ha ha, sad or anger emoticons, which we can now choose from! Thank goodness I have Facebook to define the way I feel.

One of the most well known icons on the planet 

One only has to go any place where there is a social gathering, be it a café, restaurant, airport waiting room or similar and you will be guaranteed to see the same thing. People, dozens of them, all poring over their smart ass phones. There will be little or no conversation, small children will be ignored, and older children who do not yet have a phone or tablet will be running about or finding other ways to draw the attention of their distracted parents. It is a sad scene indicative of the so called evolvement of our society.

Teenagers "socialising"

It would seem we cannot cope for even five minutes without our phones

For those parents who try to moderate or limit their children’s Internet diet, there will be daily battles as they say despairingly to their children, “Will you please put that down while we eat dinner?” The child/teen rolls their eyes and insists that unless they just send this one message to their bestie, then life won’t be worth living.  My recent experience of this was when my 19 year old step-daughter came to stay and asked one night if we could all watch a film. No problem. The film was duly put on and she spent the entire time looking at her phone! When asked “Are you watching this?” we got a detached “Yeah” as she continued scrolling, tapping and generally not watching the asked for film.

An epidemic of tapping and scrolling

Sigh.     

     

My other pet hate on Facebook are what I call the Facebook Police. You know who you are. The people who seem to have way too much time on their hands and who feel the need to comment on everything and everyone’s posts.

Example; someone asked if anyone knew of a Golden Retriever stud dog for her bitch as she wished to breed from her.  Oh. My. God. You would have thought that the poor woman had asked if anyone knew how she could poison her dog without anyone knowing. She was absolutely attacked by the self-righteous brigade who asked questions such as;

How can you breed more dogs when there are so many wanting rescue?

How can you make money out of your pet?

And on and on. While both questions might well be pertinent, it was NOT what the woman asked. She asked for a stud dog and got shot down in flames. She did not ask for a lecture in the morals of dog breeding.

Another example; a woman posted an ad for an antique baby’s crib. It was many years old and a really lovely thing. Here come the Facebook Police to say that a similar crib is less money in Mothercare. What? Who gives a f***? This is an antique, a lovely old thing, which cannot be compared to the piece of modern plywood in Mothercare. The posts continued as other people added their two penny’s worth. Ah yes, noted another nay sayer, my daughter just bought a crib like this off eBay for only 20 pence, or some such stupid comment. Again, no one asked you, keep out of her business, she’s selling a crib not asking for estimates on what it might be worth. Sheesh.

Another main player in social media is Twitter.  

Another well know Icon

Dictionary definition of the word Twitter;

To talk lightly and rapidly, especially of trivial matters; chatter.

Or as someone on Facebook recently said to me;

“A lot of people talking and no one listening”

Never were truer words spoken; thanks Rupert G J

The Twitter site, which started in 2006, allowed people to send messages or Tweets as they are known, of no more than 140 characters. That should have been my first warning as to the dubious usefulness of this social media. I mean really, what can one usefully say in 140 characters?

As an author I had a Twitter account. It was considered essential for furthering awareness of my books. I’ll be honest, I didn’t “get” Twitter but I duly began “Following” people and was very excited to see new people “Follow” me back. However, the excitement was short-lived and after a very short while, I began to wonder about the value of Twitter. It seemed to me that given the very fast turnover of Tweets, I’d need to be sat there 24/7 watching for new ones and re-tweeting or liking them! It was just something else to do. Something else demanding my time and attention and if I was Tweeting, I was not writing books!

Using Twitter to promote books

When I did use Twitter it was usually after I had written a blog or had a book release. I would tag people into Tweets. If they were individuals, I would only tag those I followed and who followed me. If it was a big organisation or group, I would tag them if I followed them, but they didn’t necessarily follow me.  

Obviously there would be a link to the blog or sometimes directly to the book. I mean, that’s what it’s for, right?

Wrong.

My first taste of things to come was in the build up to my most recent novel Caught in Traffick. A harrowing book set in Thailand and following the underground activities of a child trafficking gang. I duly sent my Tweets – which is by the way SO time consuming. I’d literally sit at the laptop for hours sending Tweets to all my contacts, which had now grown to over 1000.

I was pleased to see that someone had sent me a direct response. 

I was less enthusiastic when I read it.

This guy berated me in several Tweets (140 characters was clearly not enough in which to abuse me). He accused me of trying to make money out of the misery of children, of exploiting them. He called down shame upon me and asked others to “name and shame” me. I was absolutely mortified. 

My insides turned to jelly as I contemplated the horror of public humiliation. Would I be held up as a bad example; sacrificed and burned on the fires of social media?

As a child protection social worker who has spent years trying to protect children and fighting for their rights, to have someone accuse me of exploiting them was quite honestly, devastating. I then found that the guy had blocked me, thus preventing me from responding to him. However, I did some digging and found his website. Turns out he was a mercenary living in Thailand, charging people a small fortune to search for their lost children. Talk about hypocrisy!

I also discovered that the main players on Twitter were all after business. They were like a pack of hungry sharks, all sending me never ending Tweets asking if I wanted to sign up with them and have them send 4 Tweets a day or whatever it was, for only $9.99 a month.  Hang on, can’t I send my own Tweets for nothing? Hmm, the point being that they had eleventy million contacts who would all see the Tweet about MY book and of course rush to buy it. Nah, doesn’t work. I tried it and was several hundred dollars the poorer.

The straw that broke the camel’s back came last week. I am a member of a closed Facebook Book Group, which shall be nameless as what happened is no fault of this group. Someone in the group suggested that we all exchange Twitter details so we can support each other. Good idea we all said, let’s do it. And so began a frantic afternoon of adding many more people to my contact list. One of these people was a woman, who I shall not name, though I am sorely tempted to do so. She added me and I added her, I mean that was the idea. She is a book blogger, she has a website dedicated to reviewing other people’s books. An ideal contact.

I had written a blog about how I researched my latest book. The blog was therefore about child trafficking in Thailand and made difficult reading, which naturally, not everyone would find to their taste. However, I duly sent out my Tweets to these new contacts, confident that they at least would re-tweet it and raise the profile.

Sigh.

This woman sent me a sharply worded Tweet in response saying “No thank YOU I do NOT wish to read this”. I stared at it in disbelief. What? I mean, what? Once again, I went to message her back to say I had not intended any offence, only to find I had been blocked. This time, I felt angry, really bloody angry. This woman was one of many who had agreed to share Twitter details so we could be of support. Who blocks a fellow author simply because the blog content is not to her taste?

No my book is not chick lit, no, it’s not it’s not happy ever after, but it’s relevant and current and sticking your head in the sand and pretending it’s not there will not make it go away. Fine, if she didn’t want to read it, just don’t read it. I get it. But to send a rude and churlish response and then block me?

Enough was enough.

On 6^th November this year, after just over 12 months of trying, I deactivated my Twitter account.

I cannot begin to describe the feeling of freedom. Something lifted off me as I realised I would never again have to sit there sending hundreds of Tweets, which would only disappear into the ether.

For me, it feels good, feels right, so maybe I owe that woman my thanks?

Maybe

Watch out Facebook, you might be next.

Freya