These sparkly, fizzy bath treats were inspired by a best friend’s wedding cake ❤️ She asked for bath bombs as part of her wedding gift, and I thought making some that “matched” her wedding cake would be fun 😄 The resulting bath bombs aren’t a perfect match (the cake definitely tastes better!), but they still smell great and transform bath water into a silky, sensuous treat. Enjoy!

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H’s cake was a two-layer confection. The top layer was Rolo flavoured, while the bottom layer was champagne flavoured. The Rolo layer was definitely my favourite, but the champagne was still nice—it tasted a bit like exotic vanilla cake. Yum!

With two flavours, I made two different types of bath bombs. The champagne bath bombs are white and scented with Champagne Toast fragrance oil. Mine is from From Nature With Love and came in an attendee gift bag from a conference I attended in the beforetimes. I think it’s supposed to be a dupe of a Bath & Body Works fragrance, but I have never smelled any of their “champagne toast” products so I can’t speak to how close it is. It does smell, somewhat magically, effervescent, though. It’s really neat! It smells like sweet bubbly goodness and I don’t fully know why, but I like it. I decorated the tops of these bath bombs with silver-white and gold biodegradable glitter as it seemed fitting.

The Rolo bath bombs went off the rails a wee bit. They’re scented with Brambleberry’s mouth-watering chocolate ganache fragrance oil; I didn’t have anything that had caramel in the name, but I thought the scent was very appropriate having eaten the cake 😋 I was aiming to make them a soft orange colour, and judging by the product photo for red 40 dye on Yellow Bee’s website I thought red 40 might get me that… it didn’t 😅 So, my whoops-cherry-coloured bath bombs are draped in a shimmery mica “chocolate” coating.

I pressed these bath bombs with my Bath Bomb Press and 1.75″ cube mould (both gifted), but you can definitely hand-mould them if you don’t have a press. I’ve included instructions for hand-moulding spherical bath bombs in this video, starting around the 6:45 mark.

The video for these bath bombs is structured a bit differently than most of my videos—it’s got more of a “join me as I make this” vibe than a “this is how you make this” vibe, though it is still very much a tutorial. I hope you enjoy it!

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Relevant links & further reading

• Baking Soda in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• Citric Acid in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• Polysorbate 80 in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• More bath bombs:
  • Ice Palace Bath Bombs
  • Argan Rose Valentine Bath Bombs
  • Winter Solstice Bath Bombs

Champagne Bath Bombs

424g | 53% baking soda (USA / Canada)
76.8g | 9.6% Epsom salt (USA / Canada)

4.32g | 0.54% witch hazel distillate (USA / Canada)
14.08g | 1.76% Polysorbate 80 (USA / Canada)
20.8g | 2.6% olive oil (pomace) (USA / Canada)
4g | 0.5% champagne toast fragrance oil (USA / Canada)

216g | 27% citric acid (USA / Canada)
40g | 5% Cream of Tartar (USA / Canada)

To decorate:

• Silver-white biodegradeable glitter
• Gold biodegradeable glitter

Rolo Bath Bombs

424g | 53% baking soda (USA / Canada)
76.4g | 9.55% Epsom salt (USA / Canada)
0.4g | 0.05% red 40 dye

4.32g | 0.54% witch hazel distillate (USA / Canada)
14.08g | 1.76% Polysorbate 80 (USA / Canada)
20.8g | 2.6% olive oil (pomace) (USA / Canada)
4g | 0.5% chocolate ganache fragrance oil

216g | 27% citric acid (USA / Canada)
40g | 5% Cream of Tartar (USA / Canada)

To decorate:

• Chocolate-y brown mica
• 99% isopropyl alcohol (USA / Canada)

Instructions

Weigh the witch hazel, Polysorbate 80, olive oil, and fragrance oil into a small dish or beaker.

Weigh the baking soda and Epsom salts into a large bowl (and dye, for the bath bombs with dye). Stir to combine, and then add the witch hazel mixture. Put on a pair of disposable nitrile or latex gloves and blend the mixture thoroughly.

Last up, weigh in the citric acid and Cream of Tartar, and blend that into the mixture as well. When you’re done you should have a clumpy mixture that holds together well when squeezed firmly.

Now it’s time to mould the bath bombs! You can hand-mould these, as described in this post + demonstrated in the partner video, but I opted to press these bath bombs with my beautiful Bath Bomb Press and the 1.75″ cube mould. I set the press to ~45psi and pressed 80g of the mixture for each bath bomb. Be sure to watch the video to see this in action! The mould can hold 100g (3.5oz) of bath bomb mix and I’ve done that, too—it requires a bit more fussing and pre-packing to get it all to fit enough to press it, but the end result is much more cube-like.

Once the bath bombs have been moulded I left them to dry overnight before decorating them.

For decorating: For a chocolate drizzle, stir brown mica together with some 99% isopropyl alcohol. Use a disposable pipette to splatter each paint over the bath bombs and left that to dry. Watch the video to see this in action!

For the glitter sprinkle: sprinkle gold and silver biodegradable glitter over the top of the bath bombs. That’s it!

To use, drop a bath bomb into a hot bath and enjoy!

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 800g per type of bath bomb. This will make twenty 80g bath bombs (2x 800g batches).
• 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.
• Don’t substitute the baking soda or citric acid.
• You could try a different salt in place of Epsom salts.
• You can try replacing the Cream of Tartar with more citric acid, but the Cream of Tartar makes the bath bombs much harder and easier to mould.
• Give this a read for Polysorbate 80 alternatives.
• You can substitute another lightweight oil like sweet almond, grapeseed, or sunflower seed oil instead of olive oil.
• The fragrance is up to you. You could use a bath-safe essential oil instead, or any fragrance oil you like (within IFRA guidelines).
• To colour the bath bombs: stick with water-soluble dyes as they’re super potent at low concentrations and will dye your bath water without leaving a ring in the tub. You definitely don’t have to use the red 40 I did… that obviously didn’t turn out the way I hoped it would 😂
• The shimmery topping is optional (but pretty!)
  • Don’t use 70% isopropyl alcohol instead of 99%; 70% will react with the bath bombs, causing them to swell under the painting like this.
  • You can use Isododecane instead of 99% isopropyl alcohol.