• Formulating

  Melting bath salts!!

  Posted by Anonymous on October 31, 2018 at 7:17 pm

  Hi everyone! 

  I’ve encountered something weird while creating bath salts! The bath salts has the following ingredients: 

  Epsom salts
  Magnesium chloride flakes
  1 small drop of essential oil
  Coconut milk powder

  I mixed them in a sealed jar, next day, it became a soggy wet blob.

  So I experimented the various mixtures overnight to try to figure out what is causing the moisture… and so far here are the results: 

  Magnesium, Epsom, EO, Coconut: Wet 
  Magnesium + Epsom + EO: Wet 
  Magnesium + Epsom: Wet

  Magnesium + EO: Dry
  Magnesium + EO + Coconut: Dry
  Magnesium + Coconut: Dry
  Epsom + EO: Dry

  Based on the above, I feel like the Magnesium + Epsom together is causing the melting? 

  I am fine to eliminate the Epsom salts to avoid the wetness. But I cannot eliminate the other ingredients. 

  When I pour all ingredients into the jar, I seal it right away, so the exposure to air is only a brief moment. 

  Does anyone have tips on how to do this without it melting? If someone can shed some light on this that would be great. 

  Thank you so much for any info. 

  MarkBroussard replied 6 years ago 2 Members · 2 Replies

  • bath-salts
  • epsom-salts
  • magnesium-chloride
  • magnesium-sulfate
• 2 Replies

• 

  belassi

  Member

  October 31, 2018 at 9:20 pm

  I can’t find any information on this, but:
  I suspect that either the sulphate or the chloride contains water of crystallisation that is more easily leached than that of the other compound, thus when you mix them, one provides water to the other which then liquefies.

• 

  MarkBroussard

  Member

  November 1, 2018 at 12:30 am

  @chemistryconfusion:

  Yes, Epsom Salt is a hexahydrate (ie: bound water molecules) with the Oxygen having a weak electrostatic attraction to the Mg in the Magnesium Sulfate = Epsom Salts that are dissolving the MgCl.  

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