ironymaiden | fun with a side of self-loathing

making bath bombs continues to be the current craft obsession. my cosmetic dyes & lakes have arrived and the first attempt at color is drying now.

today i ordered more citric acid, polysorbate 80, and fragrance oil samples. i also got some knockoff labware pipettes and microscoops.

things i've learned:

my taste in fragrance samples is so...me. (it's all aspirational/firing in the dark since i can only go on descriptions.) like i read the names off and C laughed. look, if they actually get anywhere near "bonfire" or "cinnamon roll" i'm going to be extremely happy.
Edmonds Scientific has gone out of business. i loved that catalog so much when i was a kid and i thought they would always be around.
i looked at buying real borosilicate pipettes from Fisher and was not prepared to spend a few hundred dollars on a case of 12. so i'll deal with some cheap glass knockoffs, it's not like i'm making medications - it hurts me how inexpensive and convenient it would be to get one-time plastic ones with integrated bulbs to throw away.
of the three libraries i have access to, the one with the DIY bath books is the one that includes Island County. coincidence? i think not. also, all three of the books i got out turned out to be slim, free of any reference to chemistry or safety, and heavy on the girl power and/or crappy woo. ("sisterpreneurs" shudder, "baths" for each star sign that - if you read more than one - used the same recipe repeatedly.)
it feels like the people who talk about bath bombs on the internet are all white women with everything that comes with that (see book cringe above). it turns out that using mooncake press molds to shape bath bombs is a thing. and hey, they're gorgeous and look like fun to use. but i feel like it smacks of cultural appropriation and somehow that conversation doesn't seem to have happened (or at least it didn't blow up enough for google to index it). i have fond memories of mooncakes shared by co-workers over the years during the Mid-Autumn Festival. i've been thinking about it on and off all afternoon; i think mostly it bothers me that white people are selling them and seem oblivious to what the press was made for.