Store Your Bath Bombs With Clothing or Linens

Bath bombs have two primary functions: They look pretty and smell good. The sandy, colourful orbs are designed to turn your bathtub into a swirling, foaming, psychedelic-looking, luxuriously-scented body of water the moment you toss them in the tub, but to have them work effectively you should keep them as dry as possible until you’re ready to use them.

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Bath bombs get their fizz from an acid-base reaction that kicks off when you introduce them to moisture. Think of the baking soda and vinegar volcanos you made as a kid — that’s basically what a bath bomb is, except the acid is crystallised critic acid (instead of liquid acetic acid), and there are a lot of other ingredients, like moisturising oils, beautiful colouring agents, and exasperating glitter. Once that crystallised acid hits the water, it dissolves and starts to interact with the baking soda, and that’s when the magic happens. It takes a good bit of water to get things really fizzing, but sitting in a damp environment (like your bathroom), can degrade your bath bomb as it waits to be deployed.

Don’t store them in your bathroom, is what I’m saying. That’s where the water is. Instead store them in your linen closet, in your lingerie drawer, or some other fabric storage container. It will keep the bombs in better shape, and it will imbue your sheets, delicates, or socks with their fragrance.

Keep the bath bombs in their original packaging or put them in a little brown paper bag, and stash them in your drawers and closets to give the things contained in those spaces a more pleasant scent. Bonus: It might keep your cats out of your underwear drawer. Cats don’t usually care for fragrance, especially if that fragrance is heavy on the citrus (not sure how they feel about patchouli).