DIY Bath Bomb Making Kit

If you live in the UK, you’ve probably seen the chain store named the Works. If you’re also an arts and crafts enthusiast, you probably know that they have a wide range of affordable supplies, and often run multibuy offers on various DIY activity kits. I recently used one of the sets I purchased a while ago – a bath bomb making kit.

I made use of the 2 for £10 offer, so the bath bomb making kit and the second set I bought, a candle making box, ended up £5 each. I’ll leave candle making for another day and focus on bath bombs this time.

I’ve wanted to try bath bomb or soap making for a long time, with the main thing stopping me being that generally, it’s difficult to buy a small amount of all the required ingredients. This means that if you want to have a go in a craft of that kind, you need to commit to buying a larger amount of supplies, which also comes with a cost. A bit risky if all you want is to make a bath bomb or two.

This is where prearranged kits come in handy. They’re not exactly the same as buying every ingredient separately and then measuring everything out, as they usually have some elements mixed together, but it’s a good compromise considering the low level of commitment needed. It’s a good way of having a taster session, and if you really enjoy the experience, you can then consider going all in and buying a full range of ingredients.

I never planned on making large batches of bath bombs, so a kit making just 4 was exactly the kind of activity I was looking for.

The kit comes with three bags of pre-measured ingredients. The first one, labelled A, contains bicarbonate of soda and colouring. The second, labelled B, contains a starch, shea butter and fragrance. The third, labelled C, contains citric acid. There’s also a pair of spherical plastic moulds (reusable for future crafts), a wooden stirrer and a booklet with instructions and recipes.

The ingredients provided make 4 bath bombs but the kit contains only two moulds, so the instructions say to use half of the contents of each bag and leave the remaining half for the future.

First, you need to mix the contents of bags A and B in a bowl. Then, you need to prepare the moulds. I diverted from the instructions here, adding a few dried rose petals to the bottom of each half of a mould, for an extra touch. When you have the moulds ready, add the contents of bag C into the bowl and mix well with the other ingredients. The instructions warn to work fast here, as the ingredients come into a reaction which eventually causes the bath bomb to harden.

Finally, you need to fill each half-mould and quickly close the spheres. Then, you need to wrap the moulds with cling film to make sure the bath bombs are tightly locked as they set overnight.

I waited a day and a half before opening the moulds (just in case the bath bombs needed a tiny bit more time to harden). I’m not quite sure what chemistry took place there, but it sure worked like a charm! The bath bombs solidified just fine. I’m also pleased with the addition of rose petals – they make the bath bombs look more fancy. In fact, they could easily be mistaken for bath bombs bought in a shop.