Is it Bath Bomb or Bath Balm?
When I first started out making bath bombs. I heard some people use the term bath balm and others say bath bomb. I was confused. I thought maybe they just didn’t want to use the word “bomb”. Bath bomb and bath balm do sound similar when you hear someone say them. At the time, I never did find out why there was a difference in what people called them but moved on and decided to call them bath bombs.
Fast forward several years and once again the term “bath balm” has come to my attention. This time I decided to finally find out what was up with these two names. Sometimes I hear people use the terms interchangeably like maybe it’s a regional thing similar to using the word “pop” to describe a bubbly drink rather than soda. Let’s take a deeper dive into these two terms-bath bomb and bath balm- and see what we can come up with.
Bath Bomb
The name “bath bomb” is a great set of words to describe what these bath fizzies do when they “explode” in the tub. Okay, they don’t actually explode but the reaction that occurs between the baking soda and citric acid when the bath bomb hits the water causes it to fizz. The fizzing starts the dissolving of the bath bomb and the release of the scent as well as other ingredients.
While bath bombs come in all sorts of shapes, the most common bath bomb shape is a sphere, a ball. When you place a bath bomb in the bath water, it immediately starts to fizz and “explode” with scent and all the good skin-loving and muscle relaxing ingredients fill the tub. Many bath bombs out there have a lot of dye, glitter and floating materials which can make them fun to watch but not worth the mess they make in the tub, or on your skin and towels. When you’re relaxing in a nice soothing bath and become aware of a big mess accumulating in a ring around your tub, you start to lose any relaxing vibes you may have experienced! I call that a bath buzz kill and that’s why our Joyful Bath Co. bath bombs don’t make a mess in the tub and they contain healing ingredients.
Bath Balm
And now what to call a fizzy thing you put in your bathwater to make it smell and feel good? The name bath balm does sound very soothing and relaxing since the definition of a balm is a treatment to soothe the skin. I, however, think of a balm more like a salve that you massage onto your skin perhaps after you get out of the bathtub. The idea of calling a bath bomb a bath balm does make sense when you think of a bath bomb as healing and comforting for the skin (if it contains the right ingredients).
To find more information about the term bath balm, I decided to see what Google had to say so I typed into the search box, “define bath balm”. The definition that came up was for a bath bomb with no reference to the words bath balm. It didn’t say anything about being an alternate name for a bath bomb. Everything on Google in response to my bath balm search was all about bath bombs and used the word bath bomb, not bath balm.
Bath Bomb Wins
Well I guess that settles that then. Shall we let Google be the definitive answer for bath bomb vs. bath balm? The name bath bomb wins hands down over bath balm. Perhaps the only use of the word bath balm is by those people who say pop or is it the ones that say soda? (We’ll save that for our next blog post!) Google knows there are some people that call a bath bomb a bath balm and makes sure they don’t miss out on finding what they want. We’re happy that keywords exist to send people in the right direction to find what they’re looking for. We don’t want anyone to miss out just because they call a bath bomb, a bath balm. Afterall, whether you call it a bath bomb or a bath balm, they both have the same fun fizz! And in the immortal words of Shakespeare, “a bath bomb by any other name….” No, he didn’t really say that exactly, but you get the point. Go ahead and drop us a line and let us know what you call them!