By Debra Maslowski
This DIY bubble bar recipe contains simple nourishing ingredients to make your bath bubbly, and leave your skin soft, silky, and smooth.
I love to take baths!
Most of the time I take a shower, just for convenience and to save water, but now and then I like to indulge in a long soak. I’ve used bath salts, scrubs, bar soap, and liquid soap, but I’ve come across a solid soap that’s soft, yet firm. Furthermore, it’s packed with great ingredients for your skin!
Bathing With Safe Ingredients
Most bubble bar recipes on the market are made from SLSA or sodium lauryl sulfoacetate, which is much safer for your skin than sodium lauryl sulfate. That being said, both are chemicals that can irritate your skin to some degree, and SLSA is a very fine powder. When using it, you need to wear a mask, or it can get into your nose and sinuses. Due to these issues, I’ve created a much safer recipe that doesn’t contain SLSA.
DIY Bubble Bar Recipe
- Prep Time
- 15 minutes
- Active Time
- 45 minutes
- Drying Time
- 3 days
- Total Time
- 3 days 1 hour
- Servings
- 16 ounces
- Estimated Cost
- $5
Ingredients
- ¼ cup non-GMO cornstarch (or arrowroot powder)
- ¼ cup citric acid
- 1 cup baking soda
- ¼ cup milk powder
- ¼ cup cocoa butter melted (or shea butter)
- 2 Tbsp sweet almond oil (or avocado oil, or fractionated coconut oil)
- 1 Tbsp natural liquid soap (use your favorite brand or learn to make your liquid soap)
- a few drops natural food coloring (or a skin safe soap colorant)
- 8-10 drops essential oil (use your favorite)
Instructions
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Begin this bubble bar recipe by sifting all of your dry ingredients together to be sure there are no lumps. Add the melted butter and oil and stir well. You may want to put gloves on to mix it well. Add the soap in a little at a time, mixing well after each addition. Drip the color and mix well, or divide the mixture into two or three bowls and color each one separately. Add the essential oil and mix it in. You should have a dough-like mixture. If it’s too dry, add a bit more liquid soap. You can also add a bit more cornstarch or arrowroot powder if it’s too wet.
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Turn out onto a powdered surface and knead like bread dough. When it gets firm, you’re ready for the next step.
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Shape the bubble bar recipe bars any way you like. You can layer colors, roll them into a log, and cut them to the desired size. It can also be shaped into balls. Try adding bits of each color to the balls as you are shaping them for a fun effect. I like to make mine into “truffles.”
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Finally, let your DIY bubble bar dry out for 2-3 days. Once they are thoroughly dry, place them in a jar with a tight-fitting lid. These will keep for a few months unless you use them up before then!
Recipe Video
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To Create Fun Shapes
Simply mold the DIY Bubble Bar like clay to make them into any desired shape. (Check out this unique bar.)
This bubble bar recipe looks fun in the shape of a scoop of ice cream (see some here). To make, pack the mixture into an ice cream scoop. Mix colors to create a swirled ice cream effect. Next, press the lever and gently place the scoop onto a sheet of parchment paper. This works best with an ice cream scoop with a trigger. This will give you ridges that look like real ice cream. Finally, dust with glitter if you like. There are several colors of biodegradable glitter that can be used (find it here).
Using your DIY Bubble Bar
This bubble bar recipe is easy to make and use. You can either place the whole thing in the bathtub with the water running or pinch off a piece and hold it under running water to create bubbles. You might need to rub your hands together a bit to soften up the bar. Another method is to place the bar in a muslin bag and hang it so it is in contact with the running water.
Since you’ll get plenty of bubbles from using a small amount, I’ve never needed a whole bar for a bath. You can hold it under running water just until you have enough bubbles, then dry out the remaining bar to use during your next bath.
Do you take baths? What is your favorite way to create natural bubbles in the tub? Do you have a bubble bar recipe to share?
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Made these to the recipe and they came out looking exactly like the picture, but there are zero bubbles. They work more like bath bombs rather than bubble bars. Pretty disappointing 🙁
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How long do you find these keep for? and is there a benefit to the skin in using the milk powder? Thanks
Sorry, Kelly, I should have scrolled down before I answered the last question! They’ll keep for about 6 weeks if stored in a tightly sealed container. They’ll last longer than that, but will get hard over time and it may take more time to melt them down. It’s fine to use them that way though. The milk powder will have different effects on your skin depending on which one you use, but all of them are softening and soothing. Goat’s milk in particular will be very nourishing for your skin. Coconut milk powder and almond milk powder won’t have the lactic acid that non fat milk powder and buttermilk powders do, but they are still good for your skin, providing vitamins and minerals that you wouldn’t be able to get from other sources.
is milk powder just the powdered milk that you would mix with water to drink?
Yes, Kelly, it’s the same thing. Or you can use buttermilk powder or goat’s milk powder, depending on the effect you want to have on your skin. All of them will be good in different ways.
Hello Debra, luv your site. Easy to understand, healthy, helpful facts and recipes. My question for the bars is; after mixing you say put into a powdered surfaced like dough like you knead dough. What do I use as the powder? TY!
A lil Baking soda so the dough doesnt stick to surface
That’s right Regina, you can use baking soda. Or, Debbie, you can use cornstarch or arrowroot powder. It really doesn’t matter, it’s just to keep the dough from sticking to the board.