I Tested Two Bath Bomb Kits So You Don't Have To: Klutz vs Mine to Design

I tested two bath bomb kits so you don't have to. Here's what happened.

I picked up two kits from Hobby Lobby — a Klutz kit and one from a brand called Mine to Design. Klutz is the only craft kit brand I've ever had good results with, so I had high hopes. The Mine to Design one looked simpler from the box, and I'd never used them before.

Let's start with the Mine to Design kit.

Both kits come with most ingredients, but you'll want:

• Water
• Bowl for mixing
• Measuring spoons
• A fork or spoon for mixing
• Microwave or warm water (to melt coconut oil)
• Refrigerator (optional, for speeding up drying)

The box has a handle and comes with a round two-part mold and a single heart mold (flat bottom). Ingredients: coconut oil, mica powder colors (pink, blue, green, purple), two scent options, and a "bath bomb mix" of corn starch, citric acid, and Epsom salt. Plus baking soda.

I decided to do the round bath bomb first, pink and blue.

Step one: Mix dry ingredients. Two tablespoons baking soda plus half a teaspoon. Dump in the whole packet of bath bomb mix. Mix with your hands.

That was weird. The texture felt like chalk, and chalk gives me the creeps. Had to wash my hands immediately.

Added color — divided the mix in half, used pink and blue mica powder. Added glitter to the blue because obviously.

Then came the coconut oil. It was rock solid, so I had to warm it up. Submerged it in warm water for a few minutes, then added 15 drops of essential oil. You have to get the oil really warm to blend it.

Then you add water. Slowly. Like, sprinkle it in while mixing with one hand. The instructions warn it'll foam if you add it too fast. It foamed immediately anyway. I don't know how you add water slower than one drop at a time.

The texture should be like wet sand. It was not. Packed it into the mold anyway, pressed the two halves together, let it sit for a minute.

Pulled it apart. It crumbled. Bad.

Made another one. Same result.

The bath bombs fizzed, but left this weird gooey residue on top of the water. Like glue. It didn't dissolve properly. Not great.

This one comes with a whole book attached to the front. Much better instructions. The baking soda is already colored — they give you primary colors so you can mix any shade. One scent (strawberry kiwi) versus the other kit's two, but I liked the flexibility.

Key difference: they use glycerin instead of coconut oil. That alone seemed to fix the residue problem.

The recipe: one and a half teaspoons citric acid mixed with a fork, 16 drops of glycerin mixed in for 2-5 minutes, one drop of scent.

I went for a rainbow bomb. That meant making six separate colors and layering them. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. Each color required the same mixing process. Two to five minutes of mixing per color adds up fast.

The good part: this mix doesn't dry out quickly. You can work at your own pace. The other kit had me panicking because the mixture kept drying out.

The bad part: the instructions say to let the bath bomb dry for FOUR DAYS. I put mine in the refrigerator for 30 minutes instead. Rookie move.

When I pulled it out, the two halves weren't attached. But it crumbled way less than the Mine to Design ones.

Dropped it in water. It fizzed like crazy — way more than the other kit. But it went brown immediately. Not the rainbow show I was hoping for.

Klutz, easily. The Mine to Design kit left a gross jelly-like residue in the water. The Klutz kit didn't. The instructions were clearer, you don't have to rush, and you can actually make custom colors.

But neither kit was actually fun. I spent the whole time just following instructions and didn't get to be creative. The mixing takes forever.

Bro tip from the Klutz book: if your bath bomb crumbles, that's okay. Wish I'd read that before making two crumbly bombs.

Would I try again? Maybe. But I'd watch some real tutorials first. And I definitely wouldn't try to test a rainbow bomb in a jar. That was dumb.