When my daughter was a toddler her skin was so dry it would split between her toes. I tried lotions and oils but her skin wouldn’t heal. I don’t remember how it happened, whether someone suggested I try bath bombs or I came to it on my own, but I started researching recipes and making them. Every bath my daughter took had a bath bomb tossed in. In less than a month her feet healed and I became a believer in the moisturizing properties of bath bombs.

Dry Ingredients

12 oz Baking soda

6 oz Citric acid

Optional – 4 oz Sea salt or epsom salt

Optional – 1 tsp cream of tartar or kaolin clay (to harden the bombs)

Wet Ingredients

1 oz Coconut oil, warmed just enough to be liquid

Optional – 0.33 oz (or 10 mL) essential oil (lavender is safe for children)

Spray bottle with witch hazel (astringent for oily skin), rose water (toner for dry skin), or water

Instructions

Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix the wet ingredients in a small bowl. One tablespoon at a time, add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, using your hands to rub the mix together. Use the spray bottle and lightly spritz, pausing often to mix, to gradually reach the consistency of wet sand. Press mix in your molds tightly, then remove and store in an airtight container.

Mixing the wet and dry ingredients slowly is important; you don’t want the citric acid (a weak acid) and the baking soda (a weak base) to react with one another at this point. You want the reaction to occur when the bath bomb is placed in water. 

Notes

I use several molds, all of which are small; the largest makes a 4.5 oz bath bomb. If you make larger bath bombs, be aware that they may increase the risk of slipping in the bathtub. There is a product called polysorbate 80 that disperses oil evenly in water. To use, add 1 teaspoon to the recipe above.