Imagine being able to soak away your hard day in the bath with moisturizing oils and luxury fragrances, all while gradually tanning your skin.
Self-tanning bath bombs are a bit of a mythical creature on the internet. They haven’t actually ever been successfully made, but there is a bit of a calling for them to be created. Although a few companies have attempted them, no one has successfully produced one and marketed it, primarily due to the difficulty of achieving an even, safe, tan.
While there is someone out there working on an award-winning formula that will hopefully be successful someday, in the meantime here are the ins and outs on why we need self-tanning bath bombs and how they would work.
How Do Regular Bath Bombs Work?
Regular bath bombs are hugely popular. They have the most amazing scents and fill the bath with oils and fragrances that nourish our skin and relax us at the same time. There are flavors from birthday cake to lavender field.
By the way, these are my favorite (non-tanning) bath bombs that you can pick up on Amazon, they are seriously amazing.
They can contain pretty much anything you can think of. Some bath bombs have colorants, giving your bath a colorful tint, and some are plain, just containing a fragrance and oils.
Bath bombs dissolve and fizz in the bath, releasing essential oils, nourishing butters and other additives such as glitter or petals as well.
They are made with sodium bicarbonate and citric acid. As dry ingredients, they are inert, but once they are combined with the water in the bath they go through a chemical reaction, the citric acid reacts with the sodium bicarbonate creating sodium citrate and carbon dioxide.
This carbon dioxide bubbles and gasses the bath. As this happens, the oils and fragrances are released into the bath water.
The fizzing and bubbling don’t last long, but it is an experience loved by many who just want to have a relaxing bath with lasting fragrances.
How Would Self-Tanning Bath Bombs Work?
The theory behind self-tanning bath bombs is that along with the sodium bicarbonate and citric acid, there would be added, self-tanning agents.
DHA’s are used in self-tanning products; this ingredient reacts with the dead skin and forms a tan. Ideally, the DHA would be added to the bath bomb, and when it fizzes and dissolves in the bath, the DHA’s would cover the body evenly in the bath water and give you a tan.
However, the DHA dilutes in water and would effectively have no impact on your body. There would need to be another added ingredient, other than DHA that would tan the skin.
There isn’t really another option on the market, so this is where self-tanning bath bombs hit a wall. Finding an ingredient that would tan the skin without dissolving in water has been the battle with creating these self-tanning bath bombs.
Adding pigments could be an option, but a brown pigment would leave you looking super weird and an orange pigment will leave you looking like, well an orange. To date, there has been no movement forward in what the extra ingredient could be, but there are many out there looking for a solution.
How Effective Would They Be?
Self-tanning bath bombs seem like a great idea at first. The tanning agent would cover your body evenly while you bath, and it would be a super easy and relaxing way to tan as well.
You don’t have to sit in the hot sun, and you don’t have to worry about applying self-tanning lotion or mousse evenly, usually landing up patchy and streaky. How convenient would it be to just soak away all your worries and soak up a tan at the same time?
On the other hand, though, think about how you lie in a bath. You don’t submerge your face underwater while you bath, and your feet and shoulders usually stick out as well.
So that leaves pieces of your body that won’t be underwater, and effectively being tanned, while other parts of your body are.
This kind of defeats the whole idea of the bath bomb giving you a tan that is even all over your body. Who wants a tan tummy, thighs, and arms, but a pale face, neck, shoulders, and feet? Can’t really be much of a market for that.
Why Would You Use a Tanning Bath Bomb?
For most people, convenience is key. Finding a way to do something with the least amount of effort and time is a goal that everyone is working towards, call it laziness or call it time-management.
Being able to clean yourself, have a bit of a soak in the tub, and tan is almost like a dream come true. Not worrying about the technical aspects, just the basic idea seems great.
Bath bombs also contain ingredients and additives that moisturize and soothe the skin. Combining this in with self-tanning also helps nourish your skin, but saves you having to put that extra bit of effort in order to moisturize your skin after applying self-tanner.
You would have to prepare your skin in the same way for a self-tanning bath bomb if they did exist. Exfoliating and hydrating prior to application will allow the tanning agent (whatever it might be) apply to your skin properly, and getting rid of excess dead skin will leave you with a tan that is even and natural looking, not patchy and streaky.
The dead skin cells attract more reaction from the self-tanning DHA, so the more dead skin cells in one area, the more reaction occurs and the darker the tan will be.
This is why people often land up with darker knees and elbows when self-tanning, as these areas are often dry and have more dead skin cells.
Probably most importantly to most people, the self-tanning bath bombs would probably be fairly cheap. The core ingredients are everyday household ingredients that are cheap to buy, so theoretically this should mean that the self-tanning bath bombs would be cheap to buy.
They would only become pricey if expensive oils and fragrances were added into the formulation.
Alternatives for Now
Luckily, until these magical and mystical self-tanning bath bombs are actually created if they are created, there are some really good and effective alternatives for you to self-tan.
The products are easily bought online and if you are stuck with the application, there are always really handy tips and tricks from others who have used before.
Here are some alternative products you can try, while you wait for self-tanning bath bombs to be created:
Spray tan – Spray tanning has come a long way from dark orange people walking around with slicked hair and teeny-tiny bikinis.
There are many professional salons that have very knowledgeable spray-tan applicators who really know what they are doing. There are amazingly natural looking spray-tan products that sit lightly on your skin and don’t feel heavy or cloggy.
A spray tan from a salon can be quite expensive, but you would rather have it done properly and by someone who actually knows what they are doing, than changing it at a cheap backdoor salon and landing up some new shade of orange.
Self-tanner – There are countless and countless amounts of different self-tanning products on the market (this one is my favorite by far). There are lotions, mousse, wipes, and even self-tanning soap.
This method of tanning is so popular because you can do it at home, whenever you want. You can control how dark you want your tan to be by varying how often you apply the self-tanner, and how much you apply.
Self-tanner is also relatively inexpensive, but it is important that you purchase a good quality product. Anything sub-standard and you will land up with a funny, patchy orange tan that won’t last long at all.
Tanning pills – While the old-fashioned tanning pills aren’t the safest to use, there are tanning pills that act as accelerators.
They contain ingredients that promote the production of melanin in the skin (responsible for the browning of the skin under UV rays) and ingredients that increase the skin’s sensitivity to light.
These pills help you cut down the amount of time you need to spend in the sun to get a natural tan, but at the same time, they still require you to be in the sun, which is always damaging and harmful for your skin, short term, and long term.
Self-Tanning Bath Bombs
Yes, self-tanning bath bombs do sound incredible; but there are a few catches that don’t really speak to their practicality. In the meantime, however, there are other great ways to get a natural looking tan at home, some which don’t even involve stepping foot into the sun.
For now, stick to regular bath bombs and a good self-tanning lotion. You will still be able to soak up all that fizzy goodness in the bath with the essential oils and wonderful fragrances, and then get that summer goddess tan from a good self-tanning lotion.
