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Soothe your skin and relax in a luxurious bath using these homemade rose petal bath bombs (aka. bath fizzies). Great for gifting or just a bit of self-care.
Making bath bombs, or bath fizzies, is something that I've wanted to do for quite some time now. With the emphasis on flowers and hearts and relaxation, I figured that Valentine's Day was the perfect time to try it out. I had already experimented with making things with rose petal tea and rose water, and I decided to stick with the theme and use those same rose petals for making Valentine's Day themed bath bombs.
Of course, that doesn't mean that you can't make these year-round! Relaxing in a bath and soothing your skin and stressed muscles is something that we should consider doing much more often.
How do bath bombs work?
Bath bombs combine both an acid, in this case, citric acid, with a base, in this case, baking soda. When you make them, you have to be careful not to get your mixture too wet so that they don't combine with each other before you actually use your bath bombs. As long as the ingredients stay dry together, you won't set off the chemical reaction that makes your bath bombs fizz until you use them.
Once you drop the bath bombs into water, the acid and base will dissolve in the water and combine together, setting off the chemical reaction that will make a fizzing action. During the process, the bath bomb will dissolve away, releasing any active ingredients that you hide away inside them. This will release the oils, salts, and anything else you've decided to add to your bombs into your bath water.
Sourcing your bath bomb ingredients
Most recipes that I have found for bath fizzies use some combination of citric acid, an oil, corn starch, salt, baking soda, and water.
Citric acid is the trickiest ingredient to find when making bath bombs, but I was able to find and easily buy some online. It's necessary if you want to make your bath bombs fizz.
You can use any oil you want. For rose petal bath bombs, it may be fitting to use rosehip oil, but I decided to use coconut oil instead. Because I don't have a lot of experience making bath bombs yet, I didn't want to risk wasting an expensive oil in my experimentation.
For the liquid component of my bath bombs, I decided to use rose water. I love the delicate fragrance that either rose water or rose hydrosol imparts to homemade products made with them. (I always use one or the other when making my homemade facial moisturizer because they give it a perfect scent without needing to add anything else.)
Rather than use cornstarch, I chose to try using tapioca starch instead. Assuming that the corn starch is being used to absorb some of the humidity to keep the citric acid from reacting with the baking soda before you actually use them in the bath, it really isn't necessary to add very much. Some recipes I've seen online don't even use any because they were either concerned with the GMOs in corn starch, or they were worried about corn starch causing yeast infections. So little is used that I doubt there are serious health implications either way, though, so feel free to use cornstarch if you so prefer.
Rose Petal Bath Fizzies
Rose Petal Bath Fizzies
Ingredients
- 100 g Baking Soda
- 50 g Citric Acid
- 50 g Corn Starch
- 50 g Salt I used Himalayan salt, but you could use sea salt or epsom salt, too.
- 1 Tbsp. Coconut Oil
- spritzes rose water or rose petal tea, or water
- rose petals optional
Instructions
- Mix the dry ingredients together. I pulverized all of my dry ingredients, except for the citric acid, in a coffee grinder because I figured that the ingredients would form together more easily that way, but that step isn't really necessary. You can see that I added in a few rose petals to make them pretty for Valentine's Day. Keep in mind, though, that anything solid that you add to them will end up floating in your bath water. So if you don't want to be bathing yourself with bits of rose petals, don't add them in.
- Once your dry ingredients are mixed, work in your oil. I used coconut oil, which is solid at my house this time of year, so I worked it in much like you would work the butter into a pie crust.
- You should end up with something the consistency of slightly wet sand, and it will already start to look like it will hold its shape when you press it together.
- Make sure you have your molds ready because once you start adding in your liquid, you'll want to work quickly. Add in a little of your water, a very little bit at a time, mixing it in well after each addition. It will slightly fizz, and that is OK, but you want to try to minimize the amount of fizzing by not adding much water in each time, and by working it in quickly.
- For my molds, I used silicone candy molds and muffin tins. I think that something more solid, like a metal or hard plastic mold, would work just as well, and maybe even better for these. There was no need to prepare the trays in any way, but I did let them dry for several hours before unmolding them. I don't recommend trying to dry them in the oven, even at the lowest setting, because they will likely fizz and expand rather than dry. (Don't ask me how I know that!)
- Make sure to press your ingredients in firmly, trying to squeeze out any air bubbles.
- Once you have let your fizzies dry for a few hours, you can pop them out of their molds and start to use them.
Notes
It's hard to wait to throw them into your bath water to try them out! So, of course, I had to fill a sink with water to test them out. Even the ones that I had thrown into the oven still fizzed and dissolved, just not as well as the others that I had let air dry. All of them left the water soft and smelling nice.
Other things to keep in mind…
if you don't have citric acid, you can make these without it, but they will no longer fizz when you add them to your bath water. They will still make your skin feel soft and will smell nice. If you don't add the citric acid, there is no need to add either cornstarch or tapioca flour either.
Have fun playing with different variations of oils and scents, and enjoy your bath!
not sure if i missed it but when do i add the citric acid..
Hi Cynthia,
You did miss it, but it’s because it’s a bit confusing the way I wrote it, so I apologize. I wrote to mix all of the dry ingredients together, and that includes the citric acid. What’s confusing is that I followed that with the statement that I pulverized all of the ingredients other than the citric acid in my coffee grinder to make it all smoother, so it could be interpreted as the citric acid being separated from the rest of the dry ingredients. I’ll try to edit it to make it less confusing tomorrow when I can sit down at the computer. I hope that helps!
What a fun project and great gift for Valentine’s Day!
mmm… I can smell them now. I love the smell of rose petals. These would be a great gift for a friend who needs a break.