Inside The Factory - Series 8

Episode
Episode 6 - Bath Bombs
Broadcast Info
2024 (59 mins)
Description
Gregg Wallace explores the Lush factory in Dorset to learn how they make a whopping 14 million bath bombs a year. He’s following production of one of their bestsellers, the Intergalactic Bath Bomb, starting at the intake bay with a delivery of sodium bicarbonate. It’s a vital ingredient in bath bombs because when it reacts with another key ingredient citric acid in water, it creates carbon dioxide which provides the all-important fizz for bath time. In the playfully named ‘Ballistics’ department, Gregg meets Paulo Silva who guides him through the mixing process. Into a huge mixer goes the main ingredient, sodium bicarbonate. The intergalactic bath bomb contains three super bright pigments - blue, pink and yellow. Gregg is helping to make a batch of the blue, so tips in a synthetic blue pigment similar to food colouring used for home baking. While the colour mixes, Gregg meets the factory’s very own perfumier to learn how the essential oils from grapefruit, cedarwood, vetiver and peppermint combine to create a distinctive fragrance for the bath bombs. Being careful not to spill a drop, Gregg tips a bucket of the smelly mix into the mixer. Then, there is a surprise ingredient - popping candy! It will provide a fun crackle when it hits the water in the bath. Finally, into the mixer goes a bucket of shimmering lustre which provides a glittering galaxy effect. The whole lot is blended and then piped into waiting storage tubs. The mix may be ready, but before Gregg can help to mould it into the shape of a bath bomb, he needs some moulds. The factory makes all their own moulds on site from recycled plastic with the help of a clever machine called the forming station. It uses heat and pressure to stamp out 14 moulds at a time in just over a second. Armed with his freshly made moulds, Gregg heads to the beating heart of the factory - the 450 square-metre assembly area. Here 80 people are dedicated to pressing every single one of the 30,000 bath bombs they make each day by hand. The blue powder produced earlier is joined by tubs of yellow and pink. With the guidance of Aiste Samaite, Gregg adds citric acid along with the coloured powders containing sodium bicarbonate. Finally, there is a lump of white bicarb and citric mix that goes into the centre for an extra hit of fizz. Two halves of the mould are pressed together, and the bath bombs are formed. They’re then put into a hot room to harden. After being given the seal of approval by bath bomb inventor, Mo Constantine, Gregg’s bath bombs head to the packing area where they are tipped out of their moulds and placed into boxes ready to hit the shelves. Finally, Gregg sees his bath bombs loaded onto a lorry and head off to Lush’s Liverpool store. Elsewhere in the episode, Cherry Healey visits Loughborough University to learn how taking a hot bath can provide some of the benefits of exercise; and she visits a cutting-edge lab which grows human skin for cosmetic testing. Historian, Ruth Goodman explores a time when complex perfumes were thought to ward off the plague; and she learns how the living conditions of coal miners and their families were transformed with the introduction of communal showers.
Genre
Science; Technology

How to cite this record

The Open University, "Inside The Factory - Series 8". https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ou/search/index.php/prog/248164 (Accessed 10 Jan 2025)