Easy DIY Bath Bombs!

Hey guys!  I posted this pic on Facebook yesterday, and several people commented about how interesting it was to make your own bath bombs.  

Since it was so easy I thought I would do a quick post today telling you how I did it, and also give you some ideas and tips/tricks on how to make some of your own.  If you are not familiar with bath bombs, they are these colorful, wonderfully smelling, spherical shaped 'bombs' that you drop into a bathtub full of water.  They fizz as they melt away, releasing beautiful scents and skin-loving essential oils and other nutrients, all while lightly tinting your bathwater as well.  Not to be confused with a bubble bar, bath bombs do NOT give you bubbles.  They simply tint the water, smell delicious, and have a bunch of stuff in them that make your skin feel lovely.  If you have ever been to Lush then you have probably seen the beautiful array of them in their display bins.

-not my photo.  This, along with several others in this post were borrowed from a Google search!

I keep the majority of what I use to make my bath bombs in a basket in the bathroom.  Some ingredients are in the kitchen, but I keep the majority of what I use all together for easy use.  There are not many ingredients needed, and the recipe is so easy to throw together.

BASIC RECIPE FOR BATH BOMBS: INGREDIENTS: 1/2 cup baking soda 1/4 cup corn starch 1/4 cup Epsom salt 1/4 cup citric acid 1 tsp coconut oil few drops food coloring ~ 1 tsp of water (eyeball it, you want damp sand texture.  Just wet enough to stick together) 1.5 tsp any flavor essential oil you want *NOTE:  For the size mold that I use, this recipe makes exactly 3 bath bombs perfectly.
DIRECTIONS: -I start out by dumping all of my dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl.  As you know, coconut is a solid at room temperature.  I don't even melt mine, I just toss it in.  You need to slowwwwwwllyyyyy add in your liquids, drop by drop.  If you just dump them in you will see it activating your bath bombs and there will be lots of fizzing.  Just do it drop by drop and be slow about it.  If you have a squirt water bottle that works best, you can just give your mixture a 2-3 mists instead of adding a straight tsp of water.  The water is used just to make the texture of the mixture wet enough to hold together.  Squeeze it in your hand and see if it clumps together.  Not too wet, just damp enough to hold together.  Add as much or as little food coloring as you please, make your bath bombs whatever color you desire!  Some great essential oils to use (in my opinion) are jasmine, lavender, vanilla, lemongrass, and peppermint. -After your mixture is complete,  tightly pack whatever mold you are using (see below for ideas).  Carefully take it out of the mold and lay to dry out overnight or for several hours.  When you wake up the next day your bath bombs are ready to go!  For storage I prefer to wrap mine individually in sandwich bags to help retain their flavor.  I don't take baths all that often, and I store mine altogether in a large apothecary jar so I don't want the flavors mingling too much. I included some pics of the actual items I use in case you were wondering.

Most of my baking supplies are in freezer bags in my fridge (all my different flours, sugars, etc.) so I can't say what brand this is.  I know I purchased it at Walmart in the baking aisle, biggest box you could get.

I purchased my citric acid from Amazon and it is actually organic food grade and it is 100% pure.  In my opinion if you are going to be soaking your skin in something, it needs to be the best quality possible.  I don't want junk soaking in my skin, I want the best.  I can't remember how much this was, somewhere around $10-15 for 1 pound.  There were cheaper alternatives, but I was looking for quality above price.

I have a whole blog post on coconut oil and picking out the best ones, you can read more about that here.  I will be using this Dr. Bronner's one for most of my recipes.  It's a fresh pressed, virgin, organic, whole kernel, unrefined coconut oil that is beautiful.  Coconut oils of this type actually retain their coconut scent and so many nutrients that are lost in other lower quality oils.  I order this from Vitacost and it is the best I have ever found.

The only other coconut oil I will be using in some of my recipes is this Monoi Tiki Tahiti one.  This coconut oil is made in Tahiti and it has an actual vanilla bean in the bottle, infusing the oil with such a delicious scent.

The dark area at the bottom of the bottle is the vanilla bean.  This oil smells SO delicious!!!  I will definitely use this one in my vanilla, coconut, cupcake scented bath bombs.

As far as the essential oils used to flavor the bath bombs go, I usually get all mine from Vitacost or Amazon.  I really love the Now brand, but basically just look for 100% pure (preferably organic), really good quality oils.

For this first batch of bath bombs I just used what I had on hand.  You can get so many different colors of food coloring, but I only had this box of red, yellow, green, and blue.  Sometime later on I might pick up some more, but for now I am fine with these.  Use whatever color you want!

I forgot to photograph my Epsom salts.  I have a couple of different kinds:  plain, peppermint, and lavender.  I will use these accordingly - for vanilla/cupcake/yummy ones I will use the plain, peppermint or holiday inspired ones I would use the peppermint, and then for my jasmine/lavender/rose/floral scents I would use the lavender one.  I purchased all of my Epsom salts at Walmart, and they can be found in the band-aid/foot care aisle.

One thing I did purchase specifically for this project was a fine, iridescent, cosmetic-grade glitter.  This glitter is as soft as powder and it glistens so pretty!  It's important that you use a cosmetic-grade glitter, again, you have to watch what you put on your skin.  With all the 'toppings' you might put on your bath bombs, you want to use things that will go down your drain easily, won't leave any crazy residue in your tub, or will collect in your grate and won't go down your drain.  I want pretty, decorated bath bombs but I don't want to dirty my tub up or clog my drain.  I bought my glitter online at Brambleberry.com.  You can find anything you need to make bath bombs on that site, it's a great place to shop.  The glitter I bought was $24 for 16oz.  You need just a sprinkle of this for a bath bomb, this will last forever!  (I just dropped the bag of glitter down in a plastic container for storage.  I think lunch meat came in this container originally, lol).  I also bought some molds from this site as well (see below).

You can decorate your bath bombs in so many ways!  This was my first batch, again, I didn't really go to the store and buy anything new for these (other than the glitter and molds).  Here are some photos I found online for some ideas:  sugar flowers for cake decorating, dried flowers, dried herbs, etc.

Cupcake sprinkles and colored sugar would melt in your bathwater and wouldn't make a mess.  Remember, you're only using a sprinkle of this stuff.

As I mentioned above, I purchased some molds from Bramble Berry.  

I accidentally bought like a ton of them, lol.  These were only $5.  If you are interested in buying you some you can find them here.

There are so many options for molds if you don't want to order any.  Fillable ornaments can be found at any craft store, and they would be perfect!  Candy tins, plastic Easter eggs, you could use anything like this and they would be perfect!

Silicone muffin pans would be absolutely perfect, especially for seasonal bath bombs!  Example:  if you were making a Santa bath bomb you would half your mixture into 2 bowls.  Put some red food coloring in half, leave the other white.  Then you would sprinkle the red mixture on his suit, the white on his body/beard/etc.  So cute!

And as a last resort, you could always use an ice tray.  The bath bombs would be smaller, but you could just toss 2 or 3 (or however many you'd like) into your bath and you would get the same result.  No need to complicate things, just use what you have on hand.

I think as I continue to make these they will get prettier and more creative.  I am gonna pick up a few things at the store for my next batch (sprinkles, sugar flowers, more food coloring).  For these first 2 batches I did lemongrass (which is one of my most favorite scents in the entire world) and then I did a jasmine and lavender in the blue and pink ones.  They scented up the entire room while they were drying!  

*Note:  an empty egg carton is great for drying!

They turned out great!  Super fast and easy!

Works great!

I bought an apothecary jar several months ago with the intention of filling it with bath bombs.  I got one that is plenty big enough to stick my hand and arm down in, one that will hold numerous bath bombs.  I know I found this online, but I can't remember where exactly.  I'm sure you could find something along these lines on Amazon or eBay, just make sure to get the size you want.  This one measures about 18" high.

I started to just put my bath bombs straight into my jar as is, but I decided to wrap them individually in sandwich bags to hold in their flavor.  I don't take bubble baths all that often, I'm much more a shower person.  Plus, I didn't want their flavors mingling too much.  It would probably be prettier to display them without the plastic, but I prefer them this way.

So 6 of these bath bombs filled my apothecary jar about halfway.  I am definitely going to make a few more this week, up next will be my version of a Vanilla Cupcake and also a Lush inspired Tisty Tosty dupe!  woot-woot!!

If you have any questions don't hesitate to leave them below.  Let me know if you make any of these for yourself and what recipe you used.  Happy bath bomb making!!!

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