This Ice Palace Fizzing Shimmering Bath Dust has all the fizzy fun of a bath bomb, combined with the ease and indulgence of bath salts. There’s no moulding or pressing—just massage everything together, leave the mixture out to dry for a day or two, and you’ve got gifts for all the bath lovers in your life ❤️

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The bulk of this formulation is a blend of three different salts; Epsom salts, fine sea salt, and small-grain Himalayan pink salt. You can definitely have some fun changing up the salts you use, but I do recommend choosing small and fine grain varieties. Earlier this year I experimented with larger grain Himalayan pink salt in bath salts… it looks lovely, but the large size means it doesn’t readily dissolve, which left me feeling like I was sitting on a bunch of gravel in the bottom of the bath!

For fizzing action, we’ve got a combination of basic baking soda and acidic citric acid. Just like in a bath bomb, when these two ingredients are combined with water they react, producing carbon dioxide gas—and that’s where the fizz comes from!

The shimmer in this bath dust comes from the inclusion of 1% silver-white biodegradable glitter. This is optional (replace it with more salt if you don’t want to use it), but if you do use glitter, please make sure it’s biodegradable so your bath treat doesn’t send a bunch of shimmery microplastics down the drain.

I scented my Ice Palace Fizzing Shimmering Bath Dust with the chilly-and-fresh smelling Salty Sea Air fragrance oil, but you could easily replace that with something else that’s bath safe. As a general rule of thumb, any essential oil that is known to create a physical sensation (e.x. the tingly coolness of peppermint, or the heat of chili or black pepper) isn’t a good idea for a bath product. The combination of the heat from the bathwater (which amplifies sensations) and the whole “sitting totally naked in a tub of it (a.k.a. it can get into all your most sensitive bits)” can take what might be an interesting or pleasant sensation in a foot cream to a very unpleasant one in a bath product! A small amount of polysorbate 80 ensures the fragrance oil safely disperses into your bath water so you don’t end up with unsafe concentrations floating on the surface.

I’ve included dendritic salt to ensure the bath dust doesn’t seize into a solid lump when stored. Dendritic salt is really neat—while the INCI is still just “sodium chloride” (the same INCI as regular salt), these special salt crystals have a lot more surface area than plain salt and are far more absorbent. This increased absorptive capacity means dendritic salt holds onto fragrances and other liquids (like the solubilizing Polysorbate 80 I’ve also included), helping prevent clumping.

The finished Ice Palace Fizzing Shimmering Bath Dust looks lovely in its jar, with sparkly salts, shimmery glitter, and little pink accents from the Himalayan sea salt. Once added to a hot bath you’ll get a bunch of fizzing fun that settles out into a creamy raft of foam and transforms your bath water into silky-soft loveliness. To gift this Ice Palace Fizzing Shimmering Bath Dust I’d recommend packaging it in something clear or lightly frosted so your recipients can appreciate how pretty it is from the get-go 😊 As with all bath things, I’d avoid glass. I used a cute apothecary-style jar from YellowBee, and I love how it looks! The only downside is the cork, which isn’t hugely secure without some added tape or a rubber band—that’s not the end of the world, but it’s a good thing to know before you toss a jar in a box and mail it somewhere!

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Ice Palace Fizzing Shimmering Bath Dust

20g | 10% dendritic salt (USA / Canada)
0.6g | 0.3% Salty Sea Air fragrance oil
2g | 1% Polysorbate 80 (USA / Canada)

55.4g | 27.7% Epsom salt (USA / Canada)
40g | 20% fine sea salt (USA / Canada)
20g | 10% small grain Himalayan pink salt (USA / Canada)
40g | 20% baking soda
20g | 10% citric acid
2g | 1% silver-white biodegradeable glitter

Weigh the dendritic salt, fragrance, and Polysorbate 80 into a bowl. Massage everything together with gloved hands until the mixture is uniform.

Add the Epsom salts, sea salt, pink salt, baking soda, citric acid, and glitter. Blend with gloved hands until uniform.

Spread the mixture out on a cookie sheet and leave it to dry for two days before packaging. I used a cute 200mL apothecary-style jar from YellowBee. To use, add a few tablespoons (or more—it’s up to you!) to a running bath and enjoy your fizzy, shimmery soak!

Shelf Life & Storage

Because this product does not contain any water, it does not require a broad-spectrum preservative (broad spectrum preservatives ward off microbial growth, and microbes require water to live—no water, no microbes!). Kept reasonably cool and dry, it should last at least a year before any of the oils go rancid. If you notice it starts to smell like old nuts or crayons, that’s a sign that the oils have begun to oxidize; chuck it out and make a fresh batch if that happens.

Substitutions

As always, be aware that making substitutions will change the final product. While these swaps won’t break the recipe, you will get a different final product than I did.

• As I’ve provided this recipe in percentages as well as grams you can easily calculate it to any size using a simple spreadsheet as I’ve explained in this post. As written in grams this recipe will make 200g.
• To learn more about the ingredients used in this formulation, including why they’re included and what you can substitute them with, please visit the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia. It doesn’t have everything in it yet, but there’s lots of good information there! If I have not given a specific substitution suggestion in this list please look up the ingredient in the encyclopedia before asking.
• You could try Natrasorb instead of dendritic salt, though I haven’t tested this to see if it seizes. This is the only substitution suggestion I have for dendritic salt. If you cannot get either you can use sea salt instead, but be aware that the mixture is likely to seize into a brick, though how quickly that happens will depend a lot on the environment you live it.
• If you’d like to change up the fragrance oil or essential oil, please research it to ensure it is bath safe and the usage level is appropriate.
• You could use Polysorbate 20 instead of Polysorbate 80.
• You can try different salts instead of the ones I’ve used, but be aware this may mean you need to re-test the formulation to ensure it doesn’t seize.
• Don’t substitute the baking soda or citric acid (though if you don’t want the fizzing effect you can replace them both with more Epsom salt).
• If you don’t want glitter you can replace it with more salt.