Picture this, you're relaxing in a soothing, warm and very bubbly bath. Your skin feels soft, your mind is calm and all you can smell is your favourite scent. That’s because you made your own bubble bath with your favourite fragrances and ingredients that don’t irritate the skin.
In this blog, we’ve got 2 recipes for you to choose from! Our simple recipe is great for beginners or if you need to make the bubble bath quickly. Our advanced recipe makes the bubble bath from scratch!
So get the warm bath water running, light a few candles and enjoy your homemade bubble bath…
Contents
- Why Make Your Own Bubble Bath?
- Simple Bubble Bath Recipe
- Advanced Bubble Bath Recipe
- How To Customise The Fragrance
Why Make Your Own Bubble Bath?
Commercial bubble baths are full of synthetic ingredients that can irritate the skin. Making your own bubble bath means you can use more natural ingredients and you understand exactly what you are using on your skin!
This is also a great option for those with sensitive skin. Certain ingredients like harsh surfactants and synthetic fragrances can cause irritation for some people. By making your own bubble bath from scratch, you can avoid surfactants that irritate the skin and even make your bubble bath fragrance free!
Our simple bubble bath recipe uses a premade base and a natural essential oil. While the body wash base is not 100% natural, it is a great alternative to commercial bubble baths.
The advanced recipe uses the basic ingredients to make a simple and effective bubble bath. No excessive amounts of surfactants, no synthetic fragrance and no harsh chemicals.
Simple Bubble Bath Recipe
If you’re a complete beginner, this is the best choice as it is a super quick and simple recipe. However, you can only change the fragrance, not any of the bubble bath ingredients.
Ingredients
- 3 in 1 body wash base 990g
- Lemon essential oil 10g
Method
1. Weigh out the ingredients
- Weigh out the body wash base and lemon essential oil into a bowl.
- Slowly mix everything together until fully combined.
- Be careful not to mix it too quickly, as it will cause bubbles to form.
2. Pour into your bottle
- Once everything has combined, pour the mixture into a bottle or container of your choice.
- Now your bubble bath is ready to use!
Advanced Bubble Bath Recipe
If you want to have a go at making your bubble bath from scratch, try our advanced recipe! This is a more advanced recipe, which allows you to have complete control over the ingredients used to make the bubble bath.
Ingredients
- Water 345g
- Cocamidopropyl Betaine (CAPB) 300g
- Decyl Glucoside 280g
- Vegetable glycerin 50g
- Sweet orange essential oil 10g
- Geogard ultra 15g
Method
1. Mix water and geogard ultra
- In a bowl, weigh out the water and geogard ultra powder.
- Mix them together until the geogard ultra has dissolved. This may take a few minutes.
2. Combine the surfactants
- In a separate bowl, weigh out the cocamidopropyl betaine and decyl glucoside.
- Mix them together until they have completely combined.
- Next, add the glycerin and mix it into the surfactants.
3. Mix water and surfactants
- Before combining the two mixtures, make sure you do these steps carefully and slowly. These surfactants will start to bubble and foam when they are added to water, so you need to reduce the amount of bubbles that form as much as you can.
- Slowly pour the surfactant mixture into the water mixture.
- Very slowly mix everything together until it has all combined.
4. Add the essential oil
- Weigh out the orange essential oil and add it to your mixture.
- Slowly mix it in until it has fully dispersed.
5. Check the pH
- The pH of your bubble bath should be between 4 - 6.
- Test the pH using a digital pH meter or pH strips.
- Submerge the pH tester into the mixture and wait for the reading to appear.
- Our mixture has a slightly high pH, so we needed to bring it down.
6. Adjust the pH
- If the pH of your bubble bath is too high, make a citric acid solution.
- To make a citric acid solution, weigh 10g of citric acid and 90g of water and mix together until the citric acid has dissolved.
- Using a pipette, add a drop of the solution to the bubble bath mixture.
- Test the pH again, if the pH is still over 6, add another drop and retest. Repeat this until it is within the range of 4 - 6.
- If the pH of the bubble bath was under 4, you can follow this process but use 10g sodium hydroxide diluted in 90g water.
7. Pour into your bottle
- Now the pH of your mixture is correct, pour it into a bottle or container of your choice.
- Now your bubble bath is ready to use!
How To Customise The Fragrance
The best thing about making your own bubble bath is you can control the fragrance. Whether you want to change the scent, or use no fragrance at all, you get to choose!
You can use any natural essential oil to add fragrance to your bath, but there are a few rules you need to follow when changing the essential oil.
In our recipes, we have added a maximum of 1% essential oil. No more essential oil can be added otherwise you risk causing irritation to the skin.
If you want to change the essential oil, you must check Category 9 in the IFRA document for that essential oil. This will show you the maximum level of use in a bubble bath. If it says a percentage that is below 1%, then you must not exceed the percentage it has provided. You can read more about how to understand an IFRA document here.
You can also add a blend of essential oils for a more balanced and unique aroma. Here are some essential oil blend suggestions:
Calming Blend
- Chamomile oil 6g
- Lavender oil 4g
Energising Blend
- Rosemary oil 2g
- Peppermint oil 4g
- Lemon oil 4g
Citrus Blend
- Grapefruit oil 4g
- Bergamot oil 4g
- Lemon oil 2g
Floral Blend
- Rose oil 6g
- Geranium oil 2g
- Ylang Ylang oil 2g
Continue Reading
Now you know how to make your own perfect bubble bath, why not try more recipes?
- Want to create a more decadent bath experience? Make more bath products like our rose bath salts!
- Interested in making your own soap from scratch? Learn how to make a sunflower cold process soap with this recipe!
- Want to know how to use castile soap base to make a body wash? Check out our body wash recipes!
Let us know how you got on with these bubble bath recipes! Tag us on Instagram or Facebook or use our hashtag #thesoaperyuk
