Plastic-Free Bubble Bath Ideas for a Squeaky Green Clean

Are you looking for plastic-free bubble bath ideas for a zero or low-waste clean? Don’t get in a lather – here are my top suggestions for a squeaky green clean.

I’ve published articles before on going plastic-free in the bathroom. However, today I thought it would be useful to dedicate a whole post to bubble bath.

For years we’ve been told to eschew baths and take showers instead. But did you know that taking a bath doesn’t always use more water than a shower? I’ll admit, I do love taking a bath. However, making it plastic-free can be tricky, especially if you want to make it plastic-free on a budget.

If you have little kids that dislike the shower but love the bath, or perhaps you like to unwind after a long day in a hot bubbly bath, then you might have wondered where to buy plastic-free bubble bath. Well, wonder no more! I’ve got a whole host of ideas for you, that can hopefully work for a variety of budgets.

Plastic-Free Bubble Bath Ideas

Scrub up on my top zero-waste suggestions for your next bath:

Bath Bombs

Bath bombs are, I think, the default plastic-free bubble bath option. My kids love choosing and using bath bombs from local shops, and bath bombs certainly make it easier to coax them into the bath. However, bath bombs don’t come cheap and finding the balance between getting my kids to enjoy bathtime, and a low cost per bath was a tricky one to find.

The best balance I have found for my kids is to use mini bath bombs, such as these ones from Etsy that come in a cardboard box. At £6.99 for a box of 21, this works out at 33p per bath bomb. With all the fun of standard-sized bath bombs, these mini ones are perfect for the shallower baths that my kids have.

The other eco-friendly option would be to bulk-buy ingredients and make your own bath bombs. This recipe from Good Food is one I’ve used in the past with great success.

Bubble Bath Bars

If you and/or your kids prefer bathing in a cloud of bubbles then there are still plastic-free bubble bath options out there. Bubble bath bars, for example, are bars that you crumble a little bit off of and sprinkle into running water for luxurious bubbles.

I have struggled to find plastic-free bubble baths bars that aren’t from Lush. Lush is on my avoid list due to some problematic behaviour (see exhibit A and exhibit B). As such, I avoid their stores.

I thought it would be easy to source bubble bath bars elsewhere. And it is easy to source them. The problem lies in sourcing ethical bubble bath bars.

In particular, I struggled to find plastic-free bubble bath bars that don’t contain biodegradable glitter (spoiler: it doesn’t biodegrade and is just as bad for the environment as regular glitter) and/or mica.

Mica is a problematic ingredient linked to child labour, deforestation, and unfair wages. Mica and/or biodegradable glitter seem to be de rigueur ingredients in bubble bath bars. As such, I don’t have any particular brands to recommend, but if I find any I will update this article by linking them here.

Bubble Bath In Glass Bottles

For an indulgent treat, bubble bath in a glass bottle is a great plastic-free option. I have used Humble Bath Honey in the past, which smelled divine. The bottles are pretty and can be re-used once empty. The only drawback is that this range isn’t vegan-friendly.

For a vegan-friendly option, Funky Soap offers bubble bath in glass bottles in a variety of scents.

Refill Stores

If you have a local refill store then bringing along an old container and filling that up makes for a good plastic-free bubble bath experience.

If you don’t have a refill store near you, but do have a Body Shop, then the good news is that the Body Shop now offers a refill scheme. Whilst they don’t offer refillable bubble bath yet, you can get refillable shower gel. I’ve always found that shower gel makes for a perfectly acceptable bubble bath.

5 Litre Shampoo As Bubble Bath

Another great low-waste option is to buy 5-litre bottles of shampoo. You can buy 5-litre bubble baths, but I find buying shampoo a much more economical choice. As well as providing you with low-waste shampoo, with less plastic per ml of product, the shampoo also triples up as a liquid hand wash and a bubble bath.

My favourite bulk brands have reuse schemes in place for the 5-litre bottles. Here you can return the empty bottles back to the manufacturers for reuse. The brands taking part in such schemes include:

• Miniml 5-Litre Shampoo (£29.99) doubles up as a bubble bath and hand soap. What’s more, the empty 5-litre containers can be sent back to Miniml’s headquarters, where they will be reused again and again. You can get 15% off using the code Miniml15 at the checkout.
• The Faith In Nature 5 Litre Shampoo (£39.99) is more expensive. However, again, you can return the empty 5-litre bottles to Faith in Nature for reuse or recycling. Faith In Nature is a little more opaque about their closed-loop re-use processes than Miniml – it seems it is trialling different methods. Hopefully, this can be firmed up in due course as they work more on their closed-loop systems.

I hope these ideas can be helpful! As always, I’m open to your plastic-free bubble bath suggestions too! Do also check out my guide to eco-friendly shower gel, to help green your showering regime.