Bath Bombs

If you have ever used a bath bomb before you will know that when you add it to the water they start to fizz and produce lots of bubbles. The reason this happens is because two of the ingredients inside start to react together when the bath bomb goes into the water and this produces lots of bubbles of carbon dioxide.

To make our bath bombs the first thing that we are going to do is add the dry ingredients together in a bowl. So we are going to add 2 spoons of bicarbonate of soda, 1 spoon of Epsom salts and 1 spoon of citric acid and then mix them together.  

We are then going to add 2 drops of essential oils, and 2 drops of food colouring and give it a mix. This might not look like a lot of colour but it spreads and you can add more at the end if you want to. 

You are then going to add 5 drops of oil and give it a mix, and then 5 drops of water. Now you will want to be careful when you add the water as you don’t want to add too much. When you add the water you will see that there is a small reaction starting to happen where you add the water drops. This is the bicarbonate of soda reacting with the citric acid as you have an acid and an alkali in your bath bomb, and these react together. 

Make sure that you mix you bath bomb mixture well. At this point your mixture should start to look like breadcrumbs and this means that it is ready. If you need to you can add a couple more drops of food colouring and then it's time to put it into your moulds. Now you may have bath bomb moulds but don’t worry if you don’t as you could use ice cube trays or even something like a plastic yogurt pot. What you want to do is pack your bath bomb mixture inside and then you are going to leave in inside to harden for about 24hours. After that you can take it out and it will be ready to use! 

If you want an alternative to citric acid you can replace this with cream of tartar. You could even try making bath bombs once with citric acid and once with cream of tartar and compare the results! You could also try experimenting with different colours, flavours and different shaped moulds...

The video tutorial for this activity is available on the Surrey Libraries Facebook Page or the Surrey Libraries YouTube Channel