Perhaps I am not the only one who could use a break from the religion-suffused bickering. Here, then, for something completely different, is a bath bomb recipe.

I've had trouble making bath bombs in the past because I live in a climate that tends to be humid; the fizzy acid-base reaction gets started too easily. So I asked my friend Jake, who studied chemical engineering, to fine-tune a bath bomb recipe. I haven't made these myself yet, but Jake has made them with excellent results.

I'm guessing that he's using parts by volume, not weight.

His instructions:

Ingredients
Citric acid granular
Sodium Bicarbonate 98% pure (but you can use baking soda).
Non-reactive starch...corn works
Non iodized salt...kosher salt works and seems to work better.
Non-reactive oils. I have started using infused sunflower oils
Distilled or Spring water (something non-chorinated/fluoridated)
Simple carbonates (You can use borax...but I prefer making magnesium carbonates).

Mix citric acid, bicarbonate, starch at ratio of 1 part citric acid, 2 parts bicarbonate, 1 part starch.
Pour into heap. Sprinkle top with salt (no more than 1/2 part). This will assist in preventing water from the air beginning the actions early.

Mix solution in jar: 13 parts oil, 3 parts water, 1 part carbonate (borax). Change out infused waters and oils with parts. So rose water counts as water, scented oils count as oils etc. Do NOT use sulphuric carbonates!

Put dry in bowl and add liquid till you achieve 13 parts solid to 1 part liquid (about). It should make a crumbly chunk when you grip it.

Put bathbomb in mold to set...something airtight, if possible. Then put in fridge (NOT in freezer; freezing water BAD).

Wait a few hours.

Take bath bomb out of mold, apply oil to hands and use oils to smooth bath bomb.

(To make bath men, shove bathbomb mixture into gingerbread man mold lying on plastic wrap...then pull plastic wrap around it.)