Learn how to use a bath bomb in a few simple steps. Whether you made your own DIY bath bomb, received a Lush bath bomb as a gift, or acquired one some other way, they all work the same.
Table of Contents
In order to understand how to properly use a bath bomb, it would first help to understand what they are and what they do.
What is a Bath Bomb?
A bath bomb is made of a dry, compressed, combination of ingredients that fizz and bubble when they touch water. A simple one contains, more often than not, baking soda, corn starch, citric acid, and water as a binder. While this will give you the expected fizz, it won’t provide you with any scents, colors, or added moisturizing benefits which most people enjoy.
Therefore most companies that sell them, such as Lush or Bath and Body Works (and your home DIYer) add additional ingredients. These include essential oils for scents, coconut oil, almond oil, epsom salt to moisturize the skin. Additionally, they will add dyes and other additives such as glitter or dried flowers which get mixed into or float in a bath.
What is the Point of a Bath Bomb?
Mostly for fun! But also, they leave your skin feeling nice and soft. While bath bombs provide some fun fizzing action and a swirl of colors in a bath, the moisturizes in them do provide actual skin benefits.
How to Use Bath Bombs
Now that we know what bath bombs do, how do you actually use them?
In my example, I’ll be using one left over from my DIY Pokemon Bath Bombs.
The easiest way to use one is simply by dropping it in the bath tub (for the sake of a better photo, the “tub” in my example is a bowl of water).
It doesn’t matter what the water temperature is. This is because the bath bomb will activate once it hits any moisture (which is also why you want to make sure you store them in a dry place). As you can see from the photo below, it immediately starts to fizz when it touches water.
From there, it will continue to fizz until completely dissolved so you have a few options:
- Leave it untouched and watch it swirl into different bubbly colors
- Break it up into smaller pieces so it dissolves more quickly
- (My personal favorite): Hold it from below so it’s half out of the water so you can control the fizz. With this option you also get to feel the bubbles on your hand, which I still get a kick out of every time I use one.
Once it has completely dissolved, I recommend swirling the water around. Doing so will evenly distribute all of the moisturizers that were in it.
Making your Own Bath Bombs
By the way, making your own homemade bath bombs is incredibly easy and a quick DIY that also makes for great gifts. Check out some of my own DIY bath bomb recipes and my recommendations for molds:
How to Use a Bath Bomb
Materials
- 1 bath bomb
Equipment
- Bath tub
Instructions
- Drop the bath bomb into the bath tub (to avoid a splash you can also lightly place it in)
Next you have a few options:
Option 1
- Do nothing and let the bath bomb dissolve on its own
Option 2
- Break it up into smaller pieces so it dissolves more quickly
Option 3
- Hold it from below so it's half out of the water so you can control the fizz (and feel the fizzing action)
Lastly:
- Once the bath bomb has dissolved, swirl the water around to evenly distribute the moisturizes that were in it.