• October 25, 2012

Learn to make luxurious and fun bath truffles! What’s a bath truffle? It’s like a bath fizzy with lots of moisturizing oils and butters that you crumble into your bath for a home spa experience. In this episode, I use cocoa butter and shea butter for that luxurious touch. Bath truffles are a great project for beginner and advanced crafters alike. They are easy to customize with fragrance and essential oils of your preference.

This video includes two recipes. The first is a natural mix using Kaolin Clay and Lavender Essential Oil. The second recipe is a Sweet Bubbly Bar using a blend of Chocolate and Vanilla fragrances. Both bath truffle recipes smell amazing, and feel great in the tub. Do be careful when getting out of the tub; the extra butters in this recipe can make the bottom of the tub a little bit slippery! To help the butters in this recipe disperse better in the tub, you can add a bit of polysorbate 80. Polysorbate 80 is an emulsifier and helps prevent large pools of oil and butter in bath water. 


Ingredients used to Make Sweet Bath Truffles:

  Get everything you need to make Sweet Bath Truffles

 

Ingredients used to make the Natural Lavender Bath Truffle:

Get everything you need to make Natural Bath Truffles

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  1. I just tried this recipe and it is fantastic !!!! but I have a question how can I mail it without melting on the trip?????

  2. Can you use something other than SLS in this recipe? I have a sensitivity to SLS which is what got me into soaping.

    Thanks for your help and for sharing the creative ideas.

  3. I love this recipe. I try to stay natural so I made the lavender truffles. My truffles turned a deep chocolate brown and they do not seem to be hardening even after refrigeration. Any idea what happened? Thanks!

    1. Hi Nancy!

      I’m surprised to hear that your truffles turned brown! My first thought was fragrance discoloration, but Lavender Essential Oil does not discolor. I wonder if this could be from the lavender buds. If you like, feel free to send me a picture at sma(at)brambleberry, I would love to help you troubleshoot!

      -Amanda with Bramble Berry

      1. Amanda, I did send you a picture. I only put the lavender flowers in the bottoms of the molds, not in the “dough”. Also, why are they not hardening like in the video? Thanks, Nancy

  4. This recipe is amazing. I’ve used it several times and each time have had perfect results. I use scents that compliment the cocoa scent of the butter, and it is incredible.

    Thank you for sharing!!

    1. Hi Sarah!

      I’m so glad that you’ve tried this recipe with great success! If you ever get photos, we would love to see them on our Facebook page! 🙂

      -Amanda with Bramble Berry

  5. This is an incredible recipe, it worked perfect the first time. Thank you so much!!

  6. Hey 🙂 I really want to try these, but I’m in the UK and we don’t measure in cups. The cup amounts in these recipes, are they by weight or volume? Thanks 🙂

  7. I made the lavender bath truffle. I didn’t have kaolin clay handy so I used powdered goats milk. I loved it! The truffle dried hard and was so moisturizing! Thanks for sharing!

  8. Hi Anne Marie,

    Your blog is fantastic! Thank you very much for joining your experience with us.
    I have tried your bath truffles some days ago but I had a problem: they did not make bubbles, only a little bit. I probably did a mistake but I don’t know which one: I followed your first recipe, using this for sls ( http://www.farmaciavernile.it/index.php?page=shop.product_details&product_id=1260&flypage=flypage.tpl&pop=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=65)
    and I substituted shea butter with olive oil.
    I am sorry but I live in Italy and, as I read, I cannot buy at brambleberry…can you help me?
    Thanks so much
    Lucia

      1. Hi Becky,

        thank you for the answer. the SLS that I used was in powder, maybe I have to try another seller. I will try again. thanks a lot.

  9. So, I just tried out this recipe using SLSA and only Buttercream & Snickerdoodle as my fragrance oil. They smell utterly amazing, I’m definitely going to have to label them “Do Not Eat!” XD

    But I was wondering, I tested one truffle out in a glass bowl and I noticed that after awhile some of the foam turned brown. Is this normal? Could it be because of the discoloring nature of the fragrance oil by chance? I’m very curious about the cause of this.

    1. Hi Talia!

      I adore the Buttercream & Snickerdoodle fragrance it really does smell just like a homemade cookie. Because of the discoloring properties of the fragrance oil, it might turn a little brown in the water. Did you happen to use any colorants?

      -Becky with Bramble Berry

      1. Nope, I didn’t use any colorants. That just leaves the fragrance oil. Mystery solved! 🙂

  10. Can you use Pink Kaolin Clay instead of regular white kaolin clay to maybe enhance the color a little? I’m making natural truffles and using Rose & Geranium essential Oil. It would be nice to have a pretty light pink natural color.

    1. Hi Leah!

      You can absolutely use the Rose Clay (or another clay of your choosing) in this recipe instead of the basic white Kaolin Clay. Anne-Marie used kaolin clay in this recipe because it has a great slip and is perfect for those with more sensitive skin. Be sure to keep us updated on how your bath truffles turn out and if you get any pictures, we would love to see them on Bramble Berry’s Facebook page.

      https://www.facebook.com/BrambleBerry

      -Becky with Bramble Berry

      https://www.brambleberry.com/Rose-Clay-P5112.aspx

    1. Hi Rachel,
      You could sub out the cocoa butter, but your recipe will be quite soft. It’s what helps the truffle harden up! You could try making a small batch with avocado butter or coffee butter, but it may not harden up enough before you use it. I hope that helps!

      -Kirsten

  11. I’ve made the natural recipe with lavender essential oil tons of times so far. I just love it! My question is I just tried it using a mix of orange, grapefruit and lemon essential oils and it didn’t harden up like usual. The recipe was a lot more watery before I put them into the molds as well. I only used about a quarter more of an ounce of essential oil and the rest of the recipe stayed the same. Any idea why they would be so soft? To try to correct it would I just add more kaolin clay and/or cocoa butter? Any idea how much?

    Thanks!

    1. Hi Fallon! That sounds like such a great blend, and so fruity. What you are using is actually 25% more essential oil than the recipe calls for, and in this case, the orange, grapefruit and lemon are oil degreaser that could potentially affect the final product. I’d suggest cutting the amount of essential oil you use by just a tad to see if that helps. =)

      -Becky with Bramble Berry

  12. Hi,
    I made these last night and they turned out lovely, I refrigerated them and they popped out if the mold fine but now they back being soft. How would I package them as they are sticky. I did a small batch. I live in tropical country and thus high himidity…

    1. Good morning, Anita!

      I’m so glad you were able to try this recipe out, isn’t it a ton of fun (it’s one of my new favorites)! They can be a little soft, and the best way we have found to package them is to wrap them up with plastic wrap. They are probably a bit sticky because of the humidity, so I would definitely store them in the driest and coolest area that you can before packaging them up.

      -Becky with Bramble Berry

  13. I know Kokum butter is hard if any of you use that,its a great replacement for coca butter 🙂 Our customers love it in our whipped butters & whipped body scrubs.Hope this helps…

    My question is seen their is 2 different vanilla in this recipe would we get away with using your Vanilla and Not Vanilla Bean? Thanks so much this sounds great & I think since we have the kokum & pink salt we are going to order rest of these ingredients soon. Thanks as always. Jessica & Brandi

    1. Hi Jessica & Brandi!

      What a great question! With any fragrance or essential oil choices in body products, it’s totally up to you for what you use. In this recipe, if you only want to use Vanilla, you can totally do that and still have an amazing smelling bath truffle. Let us know how they turn out and if you get any pictures, we’d love to see them! You can share them with us on Bramble Berry’s Facebook page.

      https://www.facebook.com/BrambleBerry

      -Becky with Bramble Berry

    1. Good morning, Helen!

      The citric acid when combined with the baking soda helps these bath truffles fizz while in your bathtub. They are very similar to a bath bomb, but with a few extra ingredients. 🙂

      -Becky with Bramble Berry

  14. Hi Becky,
    I would like to know the recipe for the Sweet Bath Tuffle, could you use liquid SLS instead of the powder version?

  15. Hi,

    I am sooo thilled to see you have an all natural recipe since everything I sell is 100% total natural and safe. I’m wondering if you can color the batches at all to change the appearance besides just the color of the dry ingredients by themselves?

    Any suggestions for a better way to package these besides plastic wrap that would look professional since I sell to other businesses? Thank you so much. I totally love you guys and all the tutorials you do! You guys ROCK! 🙂

    1. Good morning!

      You can absolutely color the all-natural recipe, but just remember that this is going to be going into the bath tub and you’ll want to use something that won’t stain or leave a ring around the bathtub.

      We’ve found plastic wrap to be the best way to package these, but you can also keep them in an airtight container before you sell them. You just want to make sure they don’t dry out before your customers used them.

      I hope this helps and if you have any other questions, let me know. =)
      -Becky with Bramble Berry

  16. I just made these a couple days ago. I put my own twist on them of course and tried one last night!!! They are my new favorite bath product by far. Thank you so much for this tutorial. I will post a pic on the facebook page to see what you think.

  17. Hello everyone, I was wondering how long is the shelf life of the bath truffles? Thank you!

  18. I made the Sweet Bath Truffles and they turned out wonderful! Used Bramble Berry Batik Dome and Chrysantemum flexible molds with some Himalayan salt sprinkled on the bottom, which gave nice half rounds. Scented them with a full ounce of Chocolate Truffle fo; the only foody fo I had on hand. The whole house is smelling yummy of gorgeous cocoa 🙂 Next time I would swirl in some cocoa powder to go with the scent. I was able to fill 4 cavities of the molds with the recipe, weighing each about 4.5 Oz, so I suppose there will be enough bubbles in the bath…:-)

  19. Good question, Lillian, me too I would like to know the best way to combine the two recipes! Thanks a lot for these awesome formulas, Anne-Marie!

  20. I tried making both of these and they’re wonderful! I was just wondering if it was possible to combine the two recipes adding kaolin clay to the version with SLS to have bubbles and the luxurious feel from the clay?

    1. Absolutely, Lillian! We kept the two recipes separate because we know that a lot of people like have the option of an all-natural recipe. But, you are more than welcome to combine them in whatever you’d like! 🙂 Let us know how it turns out for you.
      -Becky with Bramble Berry

      1. Thanks! Do you have any suggestions for amounts? I was just wondering because I thought if I used both 1/2 a cup of SLS and clay then maybe the ratio to butters/bicarb and acid mixture might be off. But then if I used half the amount of each maybe it would be a bit pointless because you’d get less bubbles and less benefits from the clay. Maybe I’ll just have a play around 🙂

  21. I had a question about shipping. I wanted to ship some of the truffles for gifts this season but was worried about temps and melting points. Any suggestions?

    Thank You
    Terra

    1. Hi Terra!

      The easiest way to ship these are going to be to wrap them in plastic wrap so that any moisture that could get in would be kept out. And as long as it doesn’t get super warm, I don’t think you are going to have a problem with them melting! I hope this helps. 🙂

      -Becky with Bramble Berry

  22. I can’t wait to make these! This is new territory for me. I have what might be a silly question. I do not have the cool mold used in this tutorial. (Yet!) Will I be able to cut these up if I use a bigger mold instead?

    1. Never mind! Can you tell I hadn’t watched yet? My computer time coincides with my Little One sleeping, so no videos for me. I finally got to watch it! Great vid. Now I’m even more excited to make them. Thanks Soap Queen!!

    2. You can absolutely use whatever size and type of mold you’d like for this project. We used the 1 ounce rectangle mold because we found it to be the perfect size. 🙂

      -Becky with Bramble Berry

  23. Is one of the SLS truffels enough for a tub of water? Just writting out directions for the Mommy’s with warning on slippery tub and want to tell them to break them up, not just pop them in tub like a bath bomb, and wanted to tell them how many to use. Assume 1 oz. truffels.

    1. Good morning, Mary!

      We found that 1 or 2 truffles would be enough for an entire bath, but it would vary on the tub size and how many bubbles the customer would want. So, I’d start out with one and add another if they want more. I hope this helps! 🙂

      -Becky with Bramble Berry

    1. Good morning! Avocado Butter is a bit softer and won’t necessarily harden up as much as this recipe typically would. But in theory, you can add a bit of the Avocado Butter in this recipe while increasing the amount of Cocoa Butter to make sure it stays hard. I hope this helps! 🙂
      -Becky with Bramble Berry

  24. So glad to get a receipe that bubbles and also fizzes. Thx Love the snickerdoodle scent!!! These will make great gifts. Glad you told us about making tub slippery as I have little ones who will be using these!!!!!!

  25. How far ahead of time can I make the truffles to give as gifts? Do they need to be packaged any certain way?

    1. Also how many 1ounce bars will the truffle recipe make?
      Thanks and sorry for so many questions.

    2. Hi Bridget!

      You can make these truffles as far ahead of time as you would like. You just need to make sure they are packaged in a way that they will not get moisture in them. We suggest just wrapping them in plastic wrap.Be sure not to use a heat gun as that can melt them. Also, make sure you are storing them in a dry and cool area so they don’t fizz or melt before you give them away as a present. 🙂

      -Becky with Bramble Berry

  26. Can you use the labomb colors to add a little pizaz to the truffles.

    I am going try these tonight

    Thank you

    1. Yes – add the LaBomb colors directly to the dry powder and sift before mixing with wet ingredients. I can’t wait to hear how they turn out!

    1. Kaolin Clay is important in this recipe because it is what gives it that wonderful slip and luxurious feeling. If you have another clay available (like Bentonite), I’d suggest using that as an alternative in this recipe. Unfortunately, you can’t really leave the clay out as it is a large part of what makes this a bath truffle instead of a bath fizzie. I hope this helps!

      Bentonite Clay: https://www.brambleberry.com/Bentonite-Clay-P4059.aspx

      -Becky with Bramble Berry

  27. I want to use this recipe to give as gifts for Christmas. What kind of mold would be good to use so that I could gift one or two to each person and that would be enough for 1 time use? Does that make any sense? lol

  28. I had been wondering what the difference was between bath bombs and truffle… now I see that the truffles contain only butters. Thanks for sharing this info. These will go on my to try list forsure!

    1. You are correct! Bath bombs are mostly just for the fizz and do not typically contain any ingredient that with make it bubble of foam. Truffles have those lovely body butters as well as foaming and bubbling ingredients to make a perfectly luxurious bath treat!
      -Becky with Bramble Berry

    1. You could totally leave out the SLS in the first recipe, but it isn’t going to be as bubbly and foamy if you do. Another option you have is using the naturally-derived SLSA in this recipe. We’ve found that it gives the same frothy and foamy bubbles, but that many people like it because it is derived from palm and coconut oils. 🙂

      Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate (SLSA): https://www.brambleberry.com/Sodium-Lauryl-Sulfoacetate-SLSA-P5244.aspx

      I hope this helps! 🙂
      -Becky with Bramble Berry

  29. This is simply amazing!! Just yesterday I was trying to find a Lush-style Bubble bar recipe – everything I looked at had SLS – I am an all-natural kinda gal, so that wasn’t going to be for me – and here you are – an all-natural recipe, just for me!! Sending you a giant hug, you made my day – just wish I could return the favor by sending you some warm Florida weather!!

    1. We are so happy we could help you out! So many of our customers are looking for all-natural recipes, so we always try real hard to make sure we have an option for them as well.

      If you want to try to get the same bubbles, you could always try the naturally-derived SLSA that comes from Palm and Coconut Oils and gives that great frothy and foamy feel!

      SLSA: https://www.brambleberry.com/Sodium-Lauryl-Sulfoacetate-SLSA-P5244.aspx

      Happy Soaping!
      -Becky with Bramble Berry

          1. HI! I used SLSA works perfect lotsa juicy yummy foamy creamy buubles :D!! Thanks Soap Queens!! xox

    1. Hi Melissa!

      The Cocoa Butter is what helps this recipe harden up and not stay super soft. Do you happen to have another hard butter that you could use? If not, you can try a super small batch with just using Shea Butter but it probably won’t completely harden before you use it.

      -Becky with Bramble Berry

  30. I’m so looking forward to making these, having a bath bomb day on Sunday and will also do bath Truffles as well….

    So excited

  31. Got a couple of additions if you want to try it. Try adding Polysorbate 80 at 20% (in this recipe, I believe that would be .20 to the oils before mixing… this will then make those bath oils water dispersable…. also I used a silicone mold (I used shells, but you could use trees, stars whatever one you have on hand).
    The packaging I had on hand was your small bail jars, man this was the most well received last minute gift I have done in awhile!

      1. Hi Becky,

        I would like to know the recipe for the Sweet Bath Tuffle, could you use liquid SLS instead of the powder version?

    1. I made these for gifts for my classmates. They were all delighted. I saved one for myself and I just loved it. These were quick and easy to make, and left my skin feeling silky smooth and comfortable.

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