How to Make Bath Bombs
Recipes for Homemade Bath Bombs

Want to learn how to make bath bombs that look great, smell delicious, and fizz wonderfully? You've come to the right page :-) Get ready for some bubble-licious bath bomb bliss!

There's nothing quite like that feeling when you first immerse yourself in a bath... your muscles relax and the tension fades away in your back and neck. A fizzy bath bomb is the icing on the cake. You drop it in the bath, it bubbles away, and the bath is fragrant with rose or lavender. Bliss!

Learning how to make bath bombs is pretty easy. But I must confess that my first experience was not so successfull. I googled "making bath bombs" or "how to make bath bombs" or something like that. I found some instructions and followed them, but I ended up with a gooey melting mess.

Several batches later, I figured out how to make bath bombs reliably, and now I'd like to share what I've learned :-) You'll be making bath bombs of your own in no time!

Do I need special bath bomb molds?

No special equipment needed :-)

Don't let the lack of a mold get in the way of learning how to make bath bombs. There are plenty of things that work well as bath bomb molds.

A handy mold for making spherical homemade bath bombs is a two-part, snap-together Christmas decoration. You can find one in a craft stores. Don't worry if you can't get hold of one though, because there are plenty of other things that work just as well.

Chocolate moulds (pictured left) work well, and come in nice shapes like hearts and flowers. You can find them in craft of cookware stores.

There are plenty of other things that work as improvised molds. For round bombs, you can improvise a mold by cutting a tennis ball in half. Other things that work well as molds are muffin trays, ice-cube trays, and shot glasses. Just hunt around your kitchen for a small receptacle of some sort.

In general, smaller bath bombs are easier to make than big ones. Big ones tend to crumble, whereas small ones seem to be more robust.

Bath Bomb Recipes

Now that you've got your mold, here are the other bits and bobs that you'll need. You can find most of these in the supermarket.

Equipment

• Metal or glass mixing bowl
• Spritzer/spray bottle
• Gloves
• Bath Bomb Molds
• Sieve

Make sure you use a metal or glass mixing bowl rather than a plastic one. Plastic will absorb the smell of the essential oils. That's okay, I guess, but anything you put in the bowl in the future will smell like bubble bath ;-)

Ingredients

Essential Oil Set

• 1 cup citric acid
  (alternative: 1/2 cup cream of tartar)
• 2 cups baking soda
• 20-30 drops of essential oil - you might need more or less depending on the strength of the fragrance.
• 1 tablespoon of almond oil, apricot oil, or olive oil (optional)
• 15-20 drops of food colouring (optional)
• A tiny bit of water

Notes: Baking soda can usually be found in the baking section of the supermarket. Baking soda is also called "bicarbonate of soda".

The tablespoon of oil is optional. It gives a lovely moisturising feel. Don't use almond oil though if you or the intended recipient have nut allergies!

To make nice colourful bath bombs, you can mix the basic food colours (red, blue, yellow) to achieve just about any colour you want. Purple is a little tricky. When I mix red and blue, I get... green! But then the bath bomb turns purple once it sets, so all is good :-) Just warning you, so you don't get a surprise!

Wondering what fragrances to use? Take a look at the fragrance blend guide on my essential oil skin care page (ignore the bit about carrier oils - it doesn't apply to bath bombs).

Where do I get Citric Acid?

A couple of people have written in to ask where they can buy citric acid. You can sometimes find it in the baking section of the supermarket, but not all stores seem to have it.

If you're having a hard time finding it, the easiest place to get it is online, e.g. eBay.

Still having a hard time finding citric acid? One of our readers wrote in with this suggestion for how to make bath bombs using cream of tartar instead:

"I tried the recipe with cream of tartar instead of citric acid, and it works just as well. However, it is quite thick, so half the amount is needed - ie. 2 cups of baking soda, 1/2 a cup of cream of tartar instead of 1 cup citric acid. I hope this is comprehensible and helpful! Keep up the great work!"
~Eleanor

You can find cream of tartar in baking section of most supermarkets.

Ingredients not to use

Borax:

Please don't use this. Borax (sodium borate) is used as ant poison. If ingested, it's toxic to your liver and kidneys. Eating it can cause liver cancer. Even if you don't drink your bathwater (and I hope you don't!), do you really want to take a bath in this?

Cornflour:

Gives the water a nice "soft" texture and makes your skin feel nice... but it feeds yeast infections. I'd give it a miss!

Method
For How to Make Bath Bombs

It's a good idea to work in small batches until you get the hang of how to make bath bombs. Scale the recipe down to 1/3 cup of citric acid and 2/3 cup of baking soda at a time. That will still be enough to make two small bath bombs per batch.

Ready? Put on your gloves, and here we go:

1. Mix together citric acid and baking soda in a bowl. Make sure they're mixed thoroughly. I find that the easiest way to mix the two powders is actually to sift them back and forth between two bowls.
2. Add essential oils, optional table spoon of extra oil, and food colouring. Mix rapidly with your hands before the mixture has a chance to fizz. The food colouring will make the mixture a bit clumpy, but you can re-powderise the clumps by rubbing them between your hands.
3. Spray water onto the mixture a tiny bit at a time, and continue mixing. You probably need less water than what you think! Aim for a consistency where mixture is still pretty crumbly but will just hold its shape when you squeeze it hard in your hand.

4. Pack the mixture tightly into your mold(s). If you're using a two-part mold like the Christmas decoration, then slightly overfill each half of the mold, and press them together tightly. Don't twist, just press. Tap the mold to release the bath bomb.
5. Let your bomb(s) dry for a couple of hours in a warm, dry place.. Keep them out of direct sunlight though. I like to place the bombs in a little "nests" of tissue paper. It seems to help them dry better, and stops round ones from getting flat on the bottom.
6. Use within a few weeks. They smell so good you'll probably want to use them straight away anyway! But it's important to know that they lose their fizzing power if they're kept in storage for too long. If you give one as a gift, make sure you tell the recipient to enjoy their relaxing fragrant fizzy bath sooner rather than later!

Troubleshooting

My bath bomb crumbles when I try to get it out of the mold!

This could be either because the mixture needs to be compressed more or because it's a little bit too dry. When you put the mixture into the mould, press it in really hard. It can also help to leave it in there a minute or two before you tap it out. If neither of these helps, then try spraying a tiny bit more water on to the mixture.

My bathbomb has turned into an expanding blob!

If your bomb seems to be mysteriously expanding, then you've added too much water and the fizz reaction has already started. You can rescue a too-wet mixture by adding more baking soda and citric acid - two parts baking soda for every one part citric acid. Next time try using less water.

Presentation
How to make bath bomb packagings and wrappings

Now that you know how to make bath bombs, I bet you'll be wanting to wrap them up all nice and pretty :-) Here are a couple of ideas:

Wrap your bomb up in tissue paper. For a lavender-scented bomb, a little sprig of lavender makes a nice touch!

You could also have a go at making your own gift box for the bath bomb:

What next?

I hope you enjoyed learning how to make bath bombs! Keeping with the bath and beauty theme, have a go at making bath salts. They're super quick and easy - much easier than bath bombs. You might also like to take a peek at my full range of bath and body recipes.

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