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A bath bomb—a palm-size ball or disc generally made of baking soda, citric acid, oils, and dyes that dissolve in water—can transform a simple soak into the highlight of one’s day, calming nerves and softening skin while entertaining bathers with fantastic fizz, soothing scents, and captivating colors. After soaking in data from 46 on-the-record baths involving bath bombs from 14 different brands, we’re certain that Lush makes the most luxurious bath bombs (which start at $6.50 apiece). Press Bath Bomb Machine
If you’d prefer to spend less, Purelis Natural Bath Bombs bought in bulk provide a pleasurable bathing experience at around $1 each. We also think the Two Sisters Squishy Surprise Bubble Bombs gift set is a worthwhile splurge for kids, and we recommend the Dan&Darci Create Your Own Soap & Bath Bombs Science Lab kit for young DIYers.
Often imitated but not yet duplicated, Lush bath bombs “explode” as soon as they hit the water, filling your tub with gorgeous color, long-lasting fragrance, and skin-soothing oils.
At around $1 each, these comparatively affordable Purelis bath bombs fizz longer than the competition and smell great.
For the kid or kid-at-heart, these long-lasting bath bombs produce amazing fizz and pleasing scents, and they reveal a surprise toy as they dissolve in the tub.
Full of multiple projects kids can do on their own (or with very little help), this kit allows you to create your own fizzy bath bombs.
May be out of stock
Often imitated but not yet duplicated, Lush bath bombs “explode” as soon as they hit the water, filling your tub with gorgeous color, long-lasting fragrance, and skin-soothing oils.
At around $1 each, these comparatively affordable Purelis bath bombs fizz longer than the competition and smell great.
For the kid or kid-at-heart, these long-lasting bath bombs produce amazing fizz and pleasing scents, and they reveal a surprise toy as they dissolve in the tub.
Full of multiple projects kids can do on their own (or with very little help), this kit allows you to create your own fizzy bath bombs.
May be out of stock
Like a lovely cloth napkin or the perfect pen, a bath bomb can elevate an everyday experience—here, a soak in the tub—into one that’s sublime. Although they differ from brand to brand, most bath bombs imbue bathwater with fizz, fragrance, and fun colors. Some also introduce bubbles, dried flowers, or flecks of biodegradable glitter.
As people slog away at their endless mountains of professional and personal tasks, taking the time to draw a bath instead of hopping into the shower may already feel like a radical act. For a few exhilarating moments, soaking with a good bath bomb serves as a metaphoric middle finger to time and responsibility, a personal fireworks display declaring victory in the name of self-care.
For children, the promise of a bath bomb may provide incentive to stop play and wind down the day. And making bath bombs, with either a tried-and-true recipe or a kit, can be a fun and engaging activity to do with kids.
While most bath bombs are enjoyable, they’re not all created equal. Some contain ingredients that can trigger reactions in people with allergies or sensitivities, while others can stain skin and tubs. (Nearly every bath bomb available contains sodium bicarbonate, so if you have a known reaction to baking soda, you should relax with a nice bubble bath or bath oil instead.)
Bath bombs might not be for you if you can’t risk damaging your tub or skin, as staining is an uncommon worst-case scenario to consider, especially with highly pigmented or darker-hued bombs. All of our picks, including Lush bath bombs, have some online reviews in which buyers have posted complaints about skin and bathtub staining. Black bath bombs are almost guaranteed to stain something, whether it’s a tub or a manicure. Although most tub stains are actually the result of colorants adhering to soap scum and grime (not to the tub itself), some bath bombs can leave stubborn stains that take time to fade. If you want to use a bath bomb but can’t risk damaging your tub, or if you’re in a shared-tub situation and you don’t want to undo your stress reduction by having to scrub immediately post-soak, consider using a disposable tub liner for protection and quick cleanup.
Personally, I’ve taken an estimated 3,000-plus baths over 42 years, and including the time spent bathing my two children, I’ve had tons of tub time to try all manner of soaps and soaks. I’ve also been bath-bombing since before the term became a zeitgeisty verb, and while researching this guide I spent hours scouring listings for the top-rated (and most underrated) bath bombs currently available. I also consulted New York dermatologist Michelle Henry, MD, for information on bath bomb ingredients and skin sensitivities (overall, research on the efficacy and safety of bath bombs is limited).
After wading through a sea of customer reviews on brand websites and blogs, I divided the testing pool into three categories: general, kid-centric, and DIY kits. I omitted any bath bombs whose instructions sadistically involved a post-bomb rinse or additional soak (like these). Then, I whittled my initial list of more than 50 possible options down to 20, considering ingredients, price, and availability, with a careful eye on a high number of reported negative experiences, such as tub or skin staining (a possibility with all bath bomb brands).
Once I had our finalists in hand, my kids and I bathed for weeks on end, subjectively evaluating fizz, scent, and color strength, plus timing how long the bath bomb took to fully dissolve. (Our bath bomb testing also provided a home-schooling math lesson, as my kids and I had fun calculating the fizz-price-per-minute for each bath bomb we tried.)
Often imitated but not yet duplicated, Lush bath bombs “explode” as soon as they hit the water, filling your tub with gorgeous color, long-lasting fragrance, and skin-soothing oils.
Truly, Lush makes the very best bath bombs, which come in a variety of shapes, colors, scents, and fizz options. Lush co-founder Mo Constantine is credited with inventing the bath bomb in 1989, inspired by Alka-Seltzer. Every facet of the Lush bath bomb experience is, well, lush, from the minimalist packaging to the instant and intense fizz explosion upon first water contact to the baby-soft feel of the skin afterward.
Unlike other bath bombs, which take a while to get going in the water, Lush bath bombs practically detonate once submerged. They fizz aggressively and are mesmerizing to watch as they fill the tub with color, perfume, and a skin-softening blend of oils. On average they fizz for three minutes, for an exorbitant fizz-price-per-minute of $2 to $4 (in contrast to our budget pick’s per-minute cost of roughly 20¢).
Choosing which Lush bath bomb to soak in can seem as impossible as picking a single piece of chocolate from a box: The beautiful bathing baubles come in dozens of shapes and scents with silly names. Many people find it near impossible to buy just one or even to have a single favorite, a delightful conundrum that fuels the brand’s cultish fans, some of whom curate their Lush collections and rate their bathing experiences with more detail and gusto than top oenophiles ever exhibit. Like a quality wine, a Lush bath bomb is a pricey, fleeting treat that is physically savored for just a moment but sensually recalled fondly for some time.
Whereas competitors come wrapped up in indistinguishable protective plastic, Lush’s bath bombs arrive “naked,” ensconced in biodegradable bags and packing peanuts. You can smell many Lush bath bombs even before you fully unbox them: Their fragrances are strong and long-lasting. For three months, the scent wafting from the no-longer available Bathosaurus Rex bath bomb perfumed my bedroom more intensely than many reed diffusers have.
Although the Lush bath bomb experience is often imitated, by luxury and low-end competitors alike, no company has yet to duplicate Lush’s unique extravagance.
With even the least expensive Lush bath bombs priced at $6.50, and most bombs going for $1.07 to $2.43 per ounce (at least four times the cost per bomb of our budget pick), Lush bath bombs are among the most expensive available.
On top of that, if you’re unable to get to a Lush store, you’re stuck paying for shipping. The company usually has no free shipping option, regardless of purchase amount. In fact, shipping actually gets more expensive the more items you buy, with a cap at $10 for ground shipping and $12 for expedited.
As with all bath bombs, tub and skin staining is a possibility, most notably with the black, hot pink, and glitter varieties.
At around $1 each, these comparatively affordable Purelis bath bombs fizz longer than the competition and smell great.
For an investment of roughly $30, you can get 30 fizzy and fragrant Purelis Natural Bath Bombs for around $1 apiece. In fact, the Purelis bath bombs’ fizz-price-per-minute of about 20¢ blows that of both the budget and luxury competition out of the water. On average, these Purelis bath bombs fizz for a whopping five minutes before completely dissolving (nearly twice as long as Lush bath bombs).
Considering their lower price, these Purelis bath bombs make it possible to turn an occasional splurge into a more-frequent ritual. Although the bombs themselves are uniform in shape and size, they come in a set of 30 different colors and smells that afford a month’s worth of visual and olfactory bathtime adventures.
If someone doesn’t know just how superior Lush bath bombs are in every way, they wouldn’t feel as if they were missing out on anything with Purelis bath bombs. Although Purelis bath bombs take a second or two to activate in the water, they offer a satisfactory fizz factor that lasts for a long time, they create beautiful tub colors, and they leave behind a subtle skin scent that is short-lived but still pleasant.
These bombs come only in a mixed set of 30, so if you find a bath bomb scent that you especially like, you can’t purchase it individually.
As with all bath bombs, tub and skin staining is a possibility, most frequently with the Black Tea bath bomb in this set.
For the kid or kid-at-heart, these long-lasting bath bombs produce amazing fizz and pleasing scents, and they reveal a surprise toy as they dissolve in the tub.
These pricey but powerful surprise-filled bath bombs deliver a one-two punch: a colorful, effervescent bath experience and a “squishy” toy that’s revealed as the baking soda and citric acid melt away. Two Sisters Squishy Surprise Bubble Bombs come in different packs of six bath bombs each, making each bomb cost around $5. For the bathtime- and surprise-toy-loving kid (or adult) in your life, they could well be worth the splurge.
The fizz factor of these bath bombs is top-notch, and the smells are sweetly childish without being saccharine. Like our budget pick, these bath bombs dissolve for a generous five minutes on average.
Although the squishy plaything inside is no more than a garden-variety gumball-machine toy, the surprise element is super fun, especially for young children. The post-bath skin feel and smell are pleasant and last for a few hours.
You can’t buy these bath bombs individually, so you’ll have to plunk down $30 or so for a set of six. At 5 ounces, each bomb is double the size but five times the price of our budget pick, and it offers basically the same experience but with different scents and one of 71 “collectible” cheap squishy surprises inside. If you’re not motivated by the toy, our main pick or budget pick is a better choice.
It’s near impossible for slippery little hands to open the plastic ball that contains the squishy surprise, so stay close by or tell your child to holler for you once it’s time to open the container, lest you find yourself like me, mopping up a path of foot puddles between your location and the tub.
As with all bath bombs, tub and skin staining is a possibility.
Full of multiple projects kids can do on their own (or with very little help), this kit allows you to create your own fizzy bath bombs.
May be out of stock
The Dan&Darci Create Your Own Soap & Bath Bombs Science Lab is the only DIY kit of the six we tried that delivered fun, educational experiences both in and out of the tub. Dozens of DIY bath bomb kits exist, but most of them are difficult to use or produce poor results. Somehow, this kit has cracked the code, making the process fun and educational without causing an enormous mess. At a cost of around $1.50 per bath bomb, soap, or scrub made, it is also the most economical of the kits we considered, and it’s appropriate for any child (approximately 6 and up) regardless of their craftiness, for it is essentially foolproof. Some adult supervision is, of course, required.
In addition to bath bombs, this kit allows you to make a buffet of bath products, including multiple soaps and scrubs. The glitter soap, especially, was a major hit in our household. The addition of surprise charms to hide in the DIY bath bombs is a nice touch that elevates the final bath experience, too. (If you want to only make bath bombs, no soaps or scrubs, consider this pared down version of the kit.)
All of the dozen or so bath items we made using this kit turned out perfectly—quite a feat considering my crafting partner was a super-enthusiastic and slightly impatient 6-year-old.
Although the pink-centric kit packaging doesn’t seem gender neutral at first glance, the contents of the kit briefly drew my skeptical son into the fun.
As with all bath bombs, tub and skin staining are possibilities.
If our DIY bath bomb kit pick is not available, the MindWare Science Academy Deluxe Bath Bomb Lab is a solid if slightly pricey option. Each bath bomb regularly costs more than $3 to make, double the price of our top-pick kit, but the results are on a par with those of the Dan&Darci kit, and the set provides a great gender-neutral, scientifically serious experience.
With the Kiss Naturals DIY Bath Bomb Kit, we had a so-so experience using a mold that broke mid-process while making tiny bath bombs for $2 apiece. We also found that the Klutz Make Your Own Bath Bombs kit created crumbly bath bombs that failed to fizz. The DIY Gift Kits Bath Bomb Making Kit was messy, overpriced, and anticlimactic, while the Canal Toys So Bomb DIY Bath Bomb Factory was entirely dysfunctional, with the fancy “mix ’n’ mold” contraption neither mixing nor molding.
It’s hard to call a bath bomb that doesn’t irritate skin or stain the tub bad, but the LOL Surprise Bath Bombs come close to deserving that label. Not only is the packaging deceiving—making it seem as if the bombs are imprinted with designs and characters when they are in fact plain (the designs are on the clear plastic wrapping)—but also the bomb itself totally bombs, sinking straight to the bottom of the tub, where it ejects a fizzless stream of color for a snooze-worthy three minutes.
The following bombs simply didn’t hold up against our top and budget picks due to comparatively underwhelming fizz and muted colors: Bodycology Cherry Blossom Bath Fizzies (bag of eight), Da Bomb Bath Fizzers, Dove Milk Swirls Bath Bomb Rosewater & White Chocolate (set of two), Dr. Teal's Replenishing Pink Himalayan Ultra Moisturizing Bath Bombs (bag of four or five) and Deep Sea Lavender Scented Bath Bombs (bag of five), Fizz & Bubble Unicorn Swirl Bath Fizzy, Hempz Triple Moisture Bath Fizzer, Love Beauty & Planet Argan Oil & Lavender Bath Bomb (set of two), Suave Flavor Factory Sweet Treats Bath Bombs (bag of five), Two Sisters Eucalyptus Spearmint Bubble Bomb (currently unavailable), Ulta Beauty Detoxifying Epsom Salt Citrus Mint Bath Bomb, and Village Naturals Volcano Candle and Bath Bomb.
Nancy Redd is a senior staff writer at Wirecutter covering everything from Santa hats to bath bombs. She is also a GLAAD Award–nominated on-air host and a New York Times best-selling author. Her latest picture book, The Real Santa, follows a determined little Black boy's journey to discover what the jolly icon truly looks like.
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