In any variety of bounded integral residuated lattice-ordered commutative monoids the class of its semisimple members is closed under isomorphic images, subalgebras and products, but it is not closed under homomorphic images, and so it is not a variety. In this paper we study varieties of bounded residuated lattices whose semisimple members form a variety, and we give an equational presentation for them. We also study locally representable varieties whose semisimple members form a variety. Finally, we analyze the relationship with (...) the property “to have radical term”, especially for k-radical varieties, and for the hierarchy of varieties k>0 defined in Cignoli and Torrens. (shrink)