#Fullmetal Alchemist bath bomb

[professorpalmarosa]

I made Fullmetal Alchemist-inspired bath bombs!

Remember how I said that I have a secret side project in the works for this year? Here’s the big reveal: it’s a Fullmetal Alchemist story focusing on a pair of minor characters who only appeared in a light novel (The Land of Sand) and the 2003 version of the series. This guy in particular...

The Unholy Man of the North will be 2003 anime canon-compliant (rather than Brotherhood-compliant) and takes place 1 year after the original series ended. Russell Tringham (a young alchemist who has stolen Ed’s identity before) falls back on old habits, convinces someone he’s Edward Elric...and ends up getting kidnapped by foreigners. Before long, he’s dragged into a political conspiracy to rid the Drachman tsar of his family’s spiritual advisor: a priest the tsar’s brother-in-law believes may be performing some old, occult variant of what Amestris calls alchemy.

While I won’t be releasing this story to anyone other than beta readers until the first draft is complete (I’m about 50,000 words in), I can share a related creative endeavor with you.

Russell and his brother Fletcher created an artificial Philosopher’s Stone (a “Red Stone”) that, while powerful, didn’t quite measure up to the real thing. That had me thinking: what if I made a luxury blend...then intentionally tried to dupe it with ingredients I often use as substitutes? Here’s how it turned out!

Details are listed below, including the recipe if you want to try making “Cruelty-Free Philosopher’s Stones/Red Stones” at home!

Philosopher’s Stone Bath Bomb

Essential Oils:

Frankincense Carteri (2g)

Elemi (1g)

Finger Root (1g)

Clove (1g)

Mandarin (1g)

Cedarwood (Texan) (1g)

Colorants:

Red 40 Blooming Dye (Activated)

Red 23 Blooming Dye (Activated)

Red Oxide

Red Mica (for sparkle)

Look at this pretty color! The pink tint comes from the Red 23--but don’t overdo it! Add too much pink colorant and you’ll be pink too! This is what the mixture looked like before I added baking soda and citric acid.

Red Stone Bath Bomb

Essential Oils:

Frankincense Serrata (2g)

Myrrh (1g)

Ginger CO2 Supercritical (1g)

Cardamom (1g)

Blood Orange (1g)

Cedarwood (Himalayan) (1g)

Colorants:

Red 40 Blooming Dye (Activated)

Red Oxide

Red Mica (for sparkle)

Additional Additives:

Bath-grade pop-rocks (5g)

The first thing to note about the Red Stone blend is that it doesn’t have the splash of pink that the Philosopher’s Stone blend does. This is because I excluded the Red 23 blooming dye and traded it for more Red Oxide. This is what the mix looked like prior to adding the baking soda and citric acid. In person, it kind of looked like half-congealed blood...

The bath water was gorgeous, though! After the froth and foam died down, the color was the exact same shade as the Red Water in the anime! The scents played nicely together and I found myself dozing off in the water.

However, I’m not sure if it was the oils in this bomb or something else--but my sleep suffered after using the leftovers. I woke up from a very vivid nightmare at 2 AM and had to pee (Myrrh can stimulate your kidneys in higher doses, so my sleeping in the bath probably didn’t do me any favors).

Once I returned to bed, it was near impossible to turn my brain off again. It was going into overdrive with ideas and only let me rest again after I wrote everything down. A small silver lining to the nightmare: it did give me some pretty good ideas for the story I’m writing...so at least there’s that?

Now for a bit of good news, the Red Stone didn’t stain me or my tub! Once it went down the drain, the only thing that lingered was the smell. And even that disappeared by 2 AM.

Procedure

Mix wet ingredients (essential oils and carrier oil. For these blends, I used coconut and have some notes regarding that in the “Tips & Safety Warnings” section)

Mix all dry ingredients (300g Sodium Bicarbonate, 15g Cream of Tartar, 5g Kaolin Clay, 5g Rassoul Clay, 10g SLSA, 3g Titanium Dioxide) except Citric Acid (150g)

Mix dry ingredient blend with wet ingredients until color and texture is consistent.

Add Citric Acid and mix evenly.

Pour into molds and allow to cure for 1-2 days

Tips & Safety Warnings

1. NEVER handle essential oils with your bare hands! These chemicals are VERY potent and your body can absorb them through your skin. You should always wear gloves when handling these sorts of projects.

2. Coconut Oil solidifies at room temperature! This means that you’ll need to heat it up when you’re mixing your wet ingredients. If you’re making multiple batches at the same time, it’s also possible your coconut oil will resolidify. I made a poor man’s double boiler in my lab out of a bowl of hot water and just let the containers where I’d mixed my wet ingredients float on top of the water. It kept them in a liquid state until I was ready for them. Of course, you could always substitute for another (easier) carrier like Rosehip or Argan Oil--but I wanted to include this in case you’re using Coconut.

Take a look at the oils I’ve mixed in this photo. See how it’s getting cloudy? That’s the coconut oil resolidfying:

3. Too much Red 23 may stain you and your bathtub! I haven’t had any problems with Red Oxide or Red 40, but Red 23 (which is what gives the Philosopher’s Stone its pinkish hue) and I have a love/hate relationship. It’s a beautiful colorant and a little goes a long way, but it can stain you like nothing else if you overdo it!

4. If you are using mica colorant in your bath bomb, be sure to include a little Polysorbate 80 to your wet ingredients too! Mica can make your bombs sparkle and glitter, but it will stick to EVERYTHING if you don’t add Polysorbate 80!

5. If you plan to make these for yourself or as gifts, please look up contraindications and potential side effects of overexposure to these oils first. Some oils are not safe for children, people with certain medical conditions, or people taking certain medications. Some people may also be allergic to certain ingredients and the scent of myrrh makes some people nauseous (three guesses why it went in the Red Stone blend). Just be cautious and conscientious!

End Result

Here are the two blends side by side. There’s only one Philosopher’s Stone in the image, but it’s rather obvious which one it is thanks to the Red 23.

I’m mildly creeped out by how similar the scent profiles are to the two blends. Sometimes I’ll substitute one of these oils for another when I’m running low in a popular blend, but this was my first time literally using ALL substitutes to make a dupe. Here are my notes:

The first thing you smell in both stones is a rich, luxurious, resin-like scent. This is because both synergies contain Frankincense (which is a resin oil) and a secondary resin oil (Elemi in the Philosopher’s Stone and Myrrh in the Red Stone).

Although both stones contain a citrus oil; you only smell traces of it in the Red Stone and it’s almost nonexistent in the Philosopher’s Stone. There’s two reasons this may have happened. My Blood Orange essential oil is fresher than my Mandarin oil, so it may be more potent. Also, Blood Orange just has a stronger scent profile in general. Mandarin’s an oil I often substitute for Sweet Orange or Tangerine since it plays nicely with a lot of stuff and doesn’t try to steal the show. Blood Orange does.

The Philosopher’s Stone has a peppery bite to it that the Red Stone does not. I suspect the culprit is the Finger Root, which is a “sister smell” to the Ginger I used for the Red Stone blend. Finger Root is a lesser-known oil that I sometimes interchange with Ginger or Turmeric in my synergies. It’s got a slightly earthier smell than Ginger (which is mildly sweet on top of its spice), and packs a bit more heat. It’s also possible that the eugenol content of the Clove Bud oil I used was super high, but the company I got it from didn’t provide a chemical breakdown of the batch. I have no way of knowing.

The Red Stone gives off a weird “burning” smell that the Philosopher’s Stone does not. My guess is it’s the difference between the two Cedarwood oils. Texan Cedarwood (which I used in the Philosopher’s Stone) has a dry firewood smell to it when paired with Sage, but is much milder than Himalayan Cedarwood (which smells a bit more like the “cedar” most people are familiar with). Also, the Red Stone’s secondary resin oil is Myrrh: which can amplify warm smells like Turmeric, Black Pepper, or Cinnamon when mixed in a blend. I think the Myrrh and Himalayan Cedarwood mixed together to cause that effect.

The scent profile is about an 85% match, but that 15% difference puts it almost in an aromatherapeutic uncanny valley: like it’s “not quite right” but close enough to fool someone if they sniffed these two blind and didn’t know they were different blends.

I highly recommend trying both scents out if you aren’t allergic to any of the ingredients. It’s a fun activity, and one I’m hoping to do a live demo for at a convention in the future!

[fae-cafe-archived]

Fullmetal Alchemist Edward Self Care Kit

𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐒𝐨𝐚𝐩 (𝟏𝟎.𝟎𝟎$)

𝐄𝐝𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐒𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫 (𝟑.𝟎𝟎$)

𝐁𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐑𝐚𝐬𝐩𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐁𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐛𝐨𝐦𝐛 (𝟏𝟏.𝟎𝟎$)

𝐁𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐁𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐬 (𝟖.𝟎𝟎$)

𝐄𝐝𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐀𝐢𝐫 𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫 (𝟖.𝟎𝟎$)

𝐁𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐲 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐤 (𝟏𝟑.𝟐𝟓$)

[strawbebehmod]

Made some gacha fma bath bombs that I will be selling sometime in the future!

Each one contains an ed charm and the scent is Lilly of the valley and apple pie!

More scents and characters will be added in the future when I can put them on my store!

[sushi-stims]

Alphonse Elric stimboard !

x x x

x x x

x x x

[snow-and-ravens]

[stimmywombat]

Maes Hughes stimboard for anon

(X,X,X,X,X,X)

[aesthetic-fresh]

A self care kit for Edward Elric from FullMetal Alchemist, with no stim toys or bath bombs, with spicy smells and in red!

FullMetal Alchemist Blanket for $20.89 Kitchen Spices 7 oz Scented Candle for $15.99 Transmutation Circle Blanket for $39.99 Alchemy Sticker for $3.19 Pepperberry and Spruce Large Candle for $14.00 FullMetal Alchemist Logo Sticker for $2.88 to $16.18 depending on size

I hope you like it!

-Mod Phantom

[madd-nix]

Finally getting around to doing this! Thanks for tagging me, @lone-is-papyrus!

Rules: Tag as many people as you want.

Name: Madison

Nickname: Maddie or Mad-D

Zodiac sign: Aquarius

Height: 5′3″ (i’m short)

Orientation: Heteroromantic Asexual

Ethnicity: White

Favorite fruit: Banana

Favorite season: Summer

Favorite book series: Can it be a manga series? I don’t read much (unless it’s fanfiction lol). My favorite manga is definitely Fullmetal Alchemist, but if it has to be a book series, the last full series I read was the Monster High series by Lisi Harrison (I read it in like 8th grade).

Favorite flower: Rose. Probably because of the game, Ib.

Favorite scent: Vanilla. Definitely vanilla. I freaking love the smell of vanilla I got a vanilla bath bomb and vanilla scented hand sanitizer last weekend and it smells so good!!!

Favorite color: Blue! Especially dark blue!

Average sleep hours: 9-11 hours

Cat or Dog person: Dog, since I’m allergic to cats

Favorite fictional characters: AKA my children. Sans and Papyrus (Undertale), Edward and Alphonse (Fullmetal Alchemist), Nagisa, Itona, and Karma (Assassination Classroom), Ib, Garry, and Mary (Ib), Yukine (Noragami). There is definitely more, but I’ll leave it at that.

Number of blankets you sleep with: I have one main one (my quilt that my parents had made out of all my old T-shirts which I love), but I have a ton more. I have so many freaking blankets and stuffed animals.

Dream trip: I wanna go to Japan so badly!!!!

Blog created: I can’t remember when I created it, but I consider the first time I ever posted one of my drawings, which I believe is the Antisepticeye drawing that I drew last October, since that’s when I first started being active.

Number of followers: *checks follower count* 389. 389!!! Holy crap, why are you all here?! Thank you!!!

I’m tagging @theartsyskeleton @lynception @theominoushipster @nora-the-weeb @a-flamethatneverdies @capri-sunqueen @gkatte @fernlom And anyone else who wants to do it!

[strawbebehmod]

Bathbombs ready for sale! Currently only have edward elric ones but more will be added soon!

https://www.etsy.com/listing/928640972/fullmetal-alchemist-themed-gachapon?ref=shop_home_active_1

[strawbebehmod]

FMA BATHBOMBS ON SALE!!!!

I've got new FMA bath bombs and they are on sale now for 15% off!

Scents Currently available:

Edward elric-apple pie and Lilly of the valley

Roy mustang-rosemary and sandlewood

Envy-hot fudge brownies

Winry Rockbell-cinnamon swirl and vanilla shortbread

Alphonse-pumpkin ginger strudel

Riza hawkeye-mint and lavander

Amestrian military characters-cool musk and parsley lime

Ling and other Xing characters-peonies and fruit slices

Izumi Curtis - blueberry pie (with dried lavender in the bomb)

Other homunculi- midnight orchid and tumeric citrus

Scar- sage, patchouli, and lemon grass (with dried marigold in the bomb)

If you order and have any issues lmk and I'll be happy to work things out!! Non charm options are also available.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/928640972/fullmetal-alchemist-themed-gachapon

[professorpalmarosa]

Pass the happy! 🌻🌈 When you receive this, list 5 things that make you happy and send this to the last 10 people in the notifications!

Aaaaaah! Hi! How are you? Thanks for tagging me!

Fan fiction! (Both reading and writing! Current project is a Fullmetal Alchemist 2003-version sequel and I’m working on Chapter 7 right now!)

Bath Bombs! (I have four blends curing in the lab. One of them smells just like Tutti Frutti!)

My cat! (Even when he decides to interrupt work calls to show my boss his crusty asshole...)

Craft beer! (AND the fact that InstaCart can still give me my fix without me having to brave the COVID-19 wild!)

My amazing group of friends! (Most of whom seem to be doing OK so far. They’re all just super bored and going stir crazy.)

I know it’s kind of a dull list, but the amount of things I’ve been able to do due to the pandemic has been very little. I live alone with my cat and have to remind my geriatric neighbors why social distancing is important. It’s weird, weird times all around.