There is something incredibly relaxing about a warm bath, and these homemade salt bath bombs take the relaxation up a notch!
Bath bombs have skyrocketed in popularity lately with thousands of options available (though I’d only recommend natural or organic options if possible). Kids and adults love them and while they can cost up to $9 each to buy, you can make a whole batch for just a couple of dollars!
Non-Toxic Bath Bombs
When I was younger, I loved bath bombs, but avoided them as I’ve gotten older because store-bought versions typically contain artificial ingredients such as dyes and fragrances.
These homemade bath fizzies are a great solution! Made from nourishing sea salt or epsom salts, alkalizing baking soda, and fizzing citric acid with a nourishing oil and vanilla base.
These can be packaged for a great gift or made countless ways for relaxing baths anytime! 🙂
How to Make Bath Bombs
Bath bombs only take seconds to make, so it is important to have the ingredients on hand and measured before you start. Most of the ingredients are pantry staples in many homes, but make sure you have these on hand:
Baking Soda
The backbone of this recipe is alkalizing baking soda. It is a necessary complement to the acidic citric acid and part of the fizzing reaction.
Citric Acid
The more obscure ingredient in this recipe that a lot of people don’t have on hand is citric acid. It is necessary for the fizzing reaction that makes bath bombs feel like bathing in champagne.
Corn Starch or Arrowroot
Corn starch provides the silky feel that we all love from bath bombs. I usually use organic corn starch powder in this recipe. Arrowroot also works but doesn’t provide quite as silky of a finished product.
Salt, Oil, and Liquid
These are all very versatile and you can pick any combination that you have on hand. You’ll need some kind of:
- Oil: Pick a simple oil like olive oil, almond oil or coconut oil or get more fancy with sea buckthorn oil, argan oil or apricot oil.
- Salt: Stick to basic salt or take it up a notch with epsom salt or another favorite salt option.
- Liquid: Basic water works, but I also love using organic witch hazel for some extra skin-soothing.
Scents and Colors
This is where the options get endless. Use your favorite essential oils, add dried herbs, or make them scent-free. Some options are:
- Favorite essential oil combinations: Lavender/Vanilla or Rose/Ylang-Ylang… or just use your imagination!
- Kids love the fizzy action of bath bombs! I’m pretty cautious with essential oil use around young kids for these reasons, so I use these child-safe blends when making them as gifts for my older kids
- You can even add some natural dyes to change the color
Other Equipment Needed
These are easy to make with measuring cups and your hands, but for a fancier and more uniform product, it helps to also have:
- A digital scale to get the proportions exactly right
- Molds: For the easiest version, just form these into balls with your hands, but if you are making as gifts or just want fancier shapes, molds are the way to go. I have these metal round molds and also this variety pack of assorted shapes that the girls love. Cupcake tins also make a pretty good mold.
Homemade Bath Bomb Tutorial
Making homemade bath bombs is a great project for kids to help with. Some DIY beauty recipes (especially homemade soap) require precise measuring and handling harsh chemicals such as lye, so they aren’t a great project to undertake with children around. These bath bombs are completely opposite and are an amazing project to do with kids.
They are simple to make with kid-safe ingredients and are completely versatile. Let the kids think of ways to mix up the scents, colors, and other fun customizations.
Bath Bomb Ingredients Needed
- 8 ounces baking soda (about 1 cup)
- 4 ounces citric acid (1/2 cup)
- 1/2 cup (4 ounces) sea salt or epsom salt
- 4 ounces cornstarch (about 3/4 cup)
- 2 TBSP oil of choice (this is my personal favorite but any liquid oil will work)
- 2 tsp witch hazel (or water) plus a little more if needed
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (or more water)
- 30-40 drops of essential oils or powdered dried herbs (ginger is great)
Bath Bomb Instructions
- Combine dry ingredients (baking soda, salt, citric acid, and cornstarch) in a large bowl and mix well until combined.
- In a small bowl, combine the oil, witch hazel and vanilla extract and stir well. Add essential oils if using.
- Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients a few drops at a time. Mix well with hands (wear gloves if you have sensitive skin). Add powdered dried herbs if using.
- Mixture should hold together when squeezed without crumbling. You may need to add slightly more witch hazel if it hasn’t achieved this consistency yet. I recommend using a spray bottle with additional liquid to evenly add.
- Quickly push mixture into molds, greased muffin tins or any other greased container. Press in firmly and leave at least 24 hours (48 is better) or until hardened. It will expand some and this is normal. You can push it down into the mold several times while it is drying to keep it from expanding too much. Using the metal molds will create a stronger and more effective final bath bomb.
- When dry, remove and store in airtight container or bag. Use within 2 weeks.
Bath bombs are a great way to relax in the tub after a long day of dealing with kids, cooking, and all the other activities that motherhood entails. If you’ve never tried them, I highly encourage it, as it’s one of my favorite things to do at the end of the day.
Non-Toxic Pre-Made Bath Bombs
I finally found some natural bath bombs that us a similar recipe to mine. These are gorgeous and use only natural ingredients. They’re also much bigger than most bath bombs and last longer in a bath. I’ve been sending them as gifts lately and my friends are loving them too!
Ever made your own bath bombs? Do you have any favorite scents or herbs you’d add to these? Share below!
How to Make a Peppermint Mocha
Before I try to make my own bath salts, I would like to ask a question about some bath salts that I already bought awhile ago. Is Village Naturals Therapy bath salt natural and organic? Or does it contain any harmful chemicals? I have about 5 containers of it, but I don’t want to use it if it’s truly harmful. I couldn’t really understand some of the ingredients, but I don’t want to jump to conclusions, without more information. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!
Just google the ingredients.
I would love to make these as favors for my baby shower. I plan on using my mini muffin tins but what would you grease them with? Would coconut oil be a good choice?
That could work…
I had some major problems while making these and I’m trying to figure out what happened! First these expanded so intensely I lost probably half the batch. They were growing by the minute and if I didn’t push them down every half hour they would overflow out of the molds. After two days and several overflows I tried taking them out of the molds and they fell apart. I’m waiting to use one still and hoping they even fizz. Any suggestions on what could have gone wrong? I followed measurements and ingredients exactly. Thanks so much. They smell amazing so I’m going to use the crumbles myself instead of giving as gifts.
This is happining to me as well I keep pushing it down and it just seems to be making it crumbly did you ever find out cause I am thinking to wet but I followed the recipe to a T maybe next time I will add the witch hazel last 🙂
Mine will just not stop expanding and I forgot them this am and they are on the table around the containers!!
Put the water and or witch hazel in a spray bottle and sprayed in a little at a time. spray a little then mix..spray a little then mix. Just until you can squeeze some in your hand and it clumps.
Try adding the citric acid last, then spray lightly with the witch hazel. Nice trick I learned to keep the acid from reacting. Also i only use about a teaspoon of melted coconut oil, plus the oils/fragrance. I add a touch of mica for color. Then Add the acid last, then mist with the witch hazel, and only a few squirts. Her amount of liquid is way too high for these.
I had this problem today too. Almost all the material oozed out and I couldnt keep the molds closed. I will try adding the liquid little by little but also wonder if altitude has anything do with it. Normally in baking we have to half the leavening agents but I didnt for this. Does the amount of baking soda at high altitude make any difference in something like this?
Migh be too much liquid? I just tried these for the first time tonight…I accidentally doubled the Epsom salts so I went ahead and doubled all the dry ingredients. Then I took 3 bowls (still plenty of dry mix left!) and put a cup of mix in each bowl. Then I used 2 tsp with hazel, 2 tsp coconut oil, and 15 drops essential oil. VERY SLOWLY added the oil mix and kept mixing by hand till I was out of oil mix. Then packed into bombs! I did add a little extra witch hazel to my first two bowls but the third i didn’t and they are so far holding up the best!
My favorite oils to use are lemongrass and lavender. They smell amazing together! You feel relaxed but not sleepy like some EO’s make you feel. That’s also my favorite scent when I make goat milk soap. Everyone raves about it, even my teenage boys who think I’m crazy for making everything I can naturally and trying to make our home non toxic.
Of course there are other blends I like and use for different purposes, this just happens to be my favorite.
how many drops of each oil do you add?
I’d really like to know that too!
I tried 10 lavender and 10 lemongrass. Next time I will do less–a bit too strong
Kathy, would you be willing to share your soap recipe? I haven’t tried goat’s milk yet. Still looking for that perfect recipe.
I just pressed my fizzies into molds. I hope they turn out well, I used coconut oil instead of olive oil, witch hazel and water. I also doubled the quantity of vanilla extract and added it to my epsom salt beforehand to let the moisture evaporate off, I did this a couple of days ago in preparation. So far my fizzies have not reacted at all and smell really good. I’m going to wait the whole 48 hours before popping them out of the molds and then it will be testing time.
Where is the best and most affordable place to get the molds?
I use silicone cupcake pans as molds. The candy ones work great to make cute little molds as well.
Look for soap molds on E-bay. They will take a while to arrive, but they are inexpensive and work well.
I left mine in the molds for 48 hours and then could not get them out. Pried them apart with a screw driver and they broke in half and would not come out. How did it work for you? I am considering leaving in for an hour and then taking out… Read another comment about how someone took them out almost immediately and then let them dry. ???
If you pack them to hard they won’t come out I found that out with my batch yesterday lol
Just made these and they smell wonderful. I was curious if breathing in the citric acid can cause harm during pregnancy. I don’t know what came over me but took a big whiff after I added the wet mixture to the dry and it really tingled my nose. I am such a paranoid pregnant lady 🙂
It shouldn’t hurt, but I’d avoid it if possible…
Essential oils should not be used in the first trimester, and not all are safe in pregnancy (Citrus and peppermint are fine though).
I would avoid mint. Family two of win my nan was in old work houses. Anyway if any of the women became pregnant they would be given them pure peppermint, to abort in first trimester!
I don’t think it’s commonly known if you not had somebody live through it themselves.
Apart from that I find it to be my favourite smell and intend to use it myself in my next batch of soap (just started yesterday (Tuesday) but Unfortuantly I never discovered this page and use melt and pour styles soaps via YouTube.
Tbh I bought so many bath bomb ingredients coz YouTube was so contradicting with how t make them. I didn’t want to leave anything out for my first attempt. Now I jist going to follow this page instead . It’s clear instructions and full of explanations of what ingredients are and why they used or/and alternative options.
It’s brilliant.
This sounds great! Is there a reason it has to be used in 2 weeks? If not using water will it keep longer?
I just haven’t kept them without using them for longer than that, so I can’t personally vouch that they last longer and didn’t want to give false info (though I am testing to see how long they last) I do know that the citric acid will lose its fizziness eventually…
Because not much can grow in such a salty environment, any issue is likely caused by the bath-bombs picking up moisture from the air. Storing them in an air-tight jar (canning jar) or zip-lock bag with either silica beads (available at craft stores for drying flowers) or rice will extend the ‘life’ of the fizziness.
Note that if you have a septic system rather than being connected to city sewer, don’t use these too often. Too much salt in a septic tank may kill the bacteria that process the stuff that drains into the tank causing failure. A new septic leach field is very expensive!
Hi! I’m new here and love your site!
A couple of quick questions about this awesome project:
Where did you get the wonderful flower molds that you used?
Also, why should these be used within 2 weeks? Shouldn’t they have a longer shelf life? Or is it that they will just keep expanding?
Thanks!
I have that mold too. I got it at Amazon. It’s the Freshware Mini Rose.
Thanks!
Now if I could just get some info about the shelf life! The ingredient list doesn’t seem that it would only have a 2 week shelf life. Maybe if you use water instead of witch hazel, but other than that….
They will last indefinitely, but will lose some fizzing ability after time. Since I”ve only managed to keep them two weeks without using them up, this is as long as I can vouch for the shelf life personally…
Hi Katie,
Hope you are doing fine,
I have 2 queries here:
(a) wanted to know if bath bombs are safe for eyes. In my country mostly people take bath with bucket and mug But not in tub. So the water used on the rest of the body would be used for face also.
(b) why do we use epsom salt at all? and if it is not used then what challenge we would face?
Please share your insight for this.
Regards,
Kanika
Hi I don’t think the bath bombs are safe for eyes and it’s only meant for the tub not a bucket and mug. Epsom salts is just for relaxing I’ve seen many other recipes without Epsom salts just type in homemade bath bombs without Epsom salts and you should find a lot of recipes
What is a bath fizzy used for?
Relaxing and detoxing…
I’m just learning how to make bath products, and enjoy your recipes. I have a loved one thats has an allergy to citrus. She even breaks out with fresh citrus fruits. She realized this when she was going to school for massage therapy. Is there an alternative to using citrus acid in the recipes?
I’m not sure. Is your loved one allergic to citric acid or to a different component of the citrus?
Look for epson salts with other oils added. Like Mint or other scents she likes.
From what I have read, you can use half the amount of cream of tartar instead of citrus acid. Hope this helps.
You might consider using other fruit acids. Malic acid, comes form apples. Glycolic acid from sugar cane, tartaric acid from grapes. I don’t know enough about the bath fizzies to know whether or not any of the other fruit acids would work, but might be worth trying.
Lemon juice works
Luv the Recipe I love your blog and im only 11years old!
I am right there with you, Claudia. I love this website too, and I’m only twelve!
Same I’m 13 and looking for a better alternative than Lush’s bath bombs, they leave my skin feeling weird.
So proud of your Young ladies making healthy alternatives!!
I have not been able to find a bath soap recipe on this sight, am I missing it?
Nope, there isn’t one now, but there will be soon!
I add lavender (of course), vetiver and orange e.o. in my fizzies. My daughter has autism and the Epsom salt baths and e.o.s make her calm. The orange isn’t necessarily calming but it’s her favorite!
Don’t be too worried about the official aromatherapy uses of certain oils. There are some rules of thumb but science shows us that a lot of the claimed aromatherapy benefits are just not necessarily true. Instead, aroma is linked to memory, so if the smell of orange reminds your child of happy, relaxed times, then it will have a relaxing effect on her. For me as an Australian, the smell of volatile oils like citrus and eucalyptus reminds me of hot summer days when the oils start to evaporate from the leaves so it’s a much more relaxing scent than it might be for someone who didn’t have those childhood experiences. 🙂
Ooh interesting. Thanks for sharing. A sweet orange is one of my favorites. It litterally makes my mouth water. Ha!
Wow?!You need to read Robert Tesserand’s Book-Essential Oil Safety: A Guide for Health Care Professionals. There absolutely is scientific data that proves that the chemical makeup of Essential Oils affect the human body in different ways. I would by get into specifics but please know that Essential Oils and Fragrance Oils are two completely different things. Essential oils are very concentrated and powerful, certain ones can cause miscarriages in pregnant women and sone can slow the respiratory system in children. Yes it is true that smells in general can bring back good or bad memories and feelings but do not for one second think that Essential Oils are just for Aromatherapy.
Thank you for stating this. It is so very important,
Can you leave the fizzy in the container for like 20mins than take it out and leave it to dry?? If not please tell me alternatives instead of leaving it for 24 hours. Btw they are about egg size,I’m making than as gifts for tomorrow!! If u have an answer please tell me ASAP!!!!!
No. Unfortunately you cannot. They need a long time to dry. The larger you make them the more time they will need.
I have put mine in the oven with just the light on to dry them out a little faster without losing all the aroma.
I remove mine from my mold immediately and leave them to dry on parchment. After a couple of hours, I package them and store them. Be careful of humidity and moisture in the air, it can cause your bombs to explode (react early). Have fun!
Now i get why they are called bath BOMBS haha ?
Yeah that happened to my batch I made, they exploded everywhere
Yes! I take mine out right after pressing them together, and then I let them dry overnight.
Where do you leave them to dry? After how long do you package them?