Vicks Pucks

I saw a great pin on Pinterest, but my sister got to it before could and now I get to learn from her how to do this one right. Carolyn says, "It's that time of year again. Time for my husband's biyearly sinus infection and for my bout of the cold. Both of us have been pretty stuffed up the past few days. I decided it was the perfect time to try out this pin since we both needed it sooo badly."

The Original Pin

http://beingfrugalbychoice.blogspot.co.nz/2012/03/homemade-vicks-vapor-shower-disks.html

"All they are made of: baking soda, water, and essential oils: eucalyptus, rosemary, and lavender. I lucked out and had a bunch of baking soda that had expired (from my grocery bridal shower over three years ago) so I figured, all it is used for is to hold the oil, and then dissolve in the water to release the scents. Water... if you don't have that you are in big trouble!! The oils I have been wanting to get for awhile, now I had an excuse to start an essential oil collection."

"So I gathered everything up and started to mix. Let me tell you, if you are very stuffed up go mix this up. You will be cleared out very well! Then I poured them into my lined muffin tin."

The Pinstrosity

It seemed pretty easy, but Carolyn says that filling the cups was where she thinks she went wrong first. "I didn't fill them up as far as the original blogger filled hers up. I didn't think to look at her picture to see how far she filled hers. I figured, since she didn't say how much to fill that I just needed to evenly divide it among my 12 muffin cups. Then I let them dry. While drying the kitchen smelled of Vicks for a good long while.

After they had dried I grabbed one and went to the shower, and stuck it on the floor. It dissolved beautifully... maybe a little too quickly. But no smell came from it. It did nothing for the sinuses. So the next day I tried to place it where it would be away from the main flow of water to see if slowly dissolving would release the "Vicks" better. Nope. Shower number three I started out with two discs, and nothing. When I was done soaping I sat on the shower floor, just enjoying the water, and put a third disc in with me, in another floor location. I kinda sorta started to smell the "Vicks."

"Annoyingly this batch was a bust. Luckily on the original blog there was this at the bottom of the post (added at a later date): "for anyone who is having issues with these being "crumbly", try using 1 cup of baking soda and 1/3 cup of water (plus maybe a few tbsp more) and baking for 20 minutes at 350. THEN add a few drops of essential oils to the cooled "puck". That was a suggestion from a commenter and I tried it this morning with great success!"