Have you been working outside getting your garden ready? Ease those tired muscles after a long day with this herbal bath salts recipe.
Herbal bath salts recipe
I’m doing this post in collaboration with several of my blogger friends. We are sharing some really great Springtime themed blog posts. I will have their blogs linked at the bottom of this post, so be sure and go check them out!
This is one my favorite things I’ve made so far. It’s just so beautiful! With all of the gorgeous ingredients, it is the perfect thing to help you relax after a long day.
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What’s in it?
This herbal bath salts recipe includes Dead Sea salt, epsom salt, and a variety of dried herbal flowers. I’ve used dried calendula flowers, rose petals, and lavender flowers. They all look and smell so beautifully, and they have beneficial properties for the skin.
Dead Sea salt and Epsom salts are full of minerals, which are great for relaxation. The minerals are also very good for skin health. I’ve added a little bit of baking soda also, since that helps the body be able to better use the Epsom salts and Dead Sea salt.
I’ve also added the Relax Synergy essential oil blend from Plant Therapy. This is a gorgeous, soothing essential oil blend that helps to ease the mind and relax the whole body. It is one of my favorites! I’ve also added some liquid Castile soap. Otherwise, the essential oils tend to sit undiluted on the top of the bath water, and that can be too harsh for skin. The Castile soap helps to dilute and disperse the essential oils into the bath water. I got the essential oil dilution tip from Plant Therapy’s wonderful website.
There is also a little bit of olive oil, which helps to further dilute the essential oils. It is also great for skin.
Customize it
As with so many DIY bath and body products, you are in full control over the end result! This herbal bath salts recipe is no exception. You can change the flowers to different herbs. The essential oil blend can be changed to another blend, or just a single oil. If you wanted to get really creative, you could even add some natural, plant based coloring to the bath salts to give it a fun color. (Just beware that coloring could stain your bathtub, so keep that in mind.)
The perfect gift
These herbal bath salts really do make a wonderful present for so many different people. They would be amazing for Mother’s Day, for birthdays or Christmas gifts. If you need something for teachers or coworkers, these would do nicely. Since they are so customizable, you could change the herbs and essential oils to fit different seasons and holidays.
Pro tip
When I first started experimenting with making bath salts, I ran into a problem: the bath salts would get hard when they sat in the container for a while! I figured out what was happening. There is a little bit of moisture left in the salts, especially the Dead Sea salt. When this sits over time, the salts tend to become hard. To solve this issues, the bath salts have to be dried. An easy way to do this is to bake the salts in the oven. My instructions below include this step. That way, your bath salts won’t get hard, but will stay easy to scoop until they’re all used up.
How to use it
There are a couple of different ways you can use this herbal bath salts recipe. They work wonderfully as a relaxing foot soak during a home pedicure. Of course, you can use them in a bathtub full of warm water, too. When using them for a bath, you can either scoop some of the bath salts mixture right into the tub, and let the flowers float all around. This is really gorgeous, but it does mean you’ll have to spend a little time cleaning the flowers out of your bathtub afterwards. If you’d rather skip the cleanup, you can still enjoy these bath salts, without the mess. Just scoop the mixture into a muslin bag, and hang the bag on the faucet below the water while the bathtub is filling. That way, the water can run over the bag and the beneficial properties will go into the bath water. When the bathtub is as full as you want it to be, let the bag float around in the water. And there will be no mess afterwards!
Stop and smell the roses
This blog post wouldn’t be complete without a little reminder to stop and make time to relax. Herbal baths with mineral rich salts are so therapeutic and good for us. We really should make sure to fit them into our schedule on a regular basis. In general, it’s really important to schedule in time for relaxation, no matter what form that takes. But a warm, soothing, herbal bath is definitely a great idea whenever you need some time to chill.
Herbal bath salts recipe directions
Ingredients:
- 7 tbsp Dead Sea salt
- 1 tbsp Epsom salts
- 2 tbsp baking soda
- 1 tbsp each dried rose petals, calendula flowers, and lavender flowers
- 1 tbsp Castile soap
- 240 drops essential oils
- 1 tsp olive oil
Instructions:
- Mix all ingredients together well.
- Put ingredients on a large, flat pan.
- Bake salts in oven at 200°F for 15 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool to room temperature.
- Store in a glass, airtight container.
Check out more wonderful spring time projects!
Head on over to my friends’ blogs and see what they’re making this spring. They have some really great ideas!
Amy from Our Amyable Farmhouse is making a girl’s hooded fleece poncho
Jenny from Be Well Healthy Life is showing some clean drugstore beauty products
Brittany from Not Your Average Fox is making a DIY fairy garden
Anja from Our Gabled Home is showing 5 ways to use elderflowers
Emily from Scribbles from Emily is sharing her spring capsule wardrobe
Julie from This Beautiful Farm Life is showing her back porch makeover
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Calendula flowers, dried, organic
Lavender flowers, dried, organic
Organic extra virgin olive oil
Relax Synergy essential oil blend from Plant Therapy
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Herbal Bath Salts
Have you been working outside getting your garden ready? Ease those tired muscles after a long day with this herbal bath salts recipe.
Ingredients
- 7 tbsp dead sea salt
- 7 tbsp epsom salts
- 2 tbsp baking soda
- 1 tbsp castile soap, liquid
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 240 drops essential oils
- 1 tbsp dried rose petals
- 1 tbsp dried calendula flowers
- 1 tbsp dried lavender flowers
Instructions
- Mix all ingredients together well.
- Put ingredients on a large, flat pan.
- Bake salts in oven at 200°F for 15 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool to room temperature.
- Store in a glass, airtight container.
there is an image of a finished bath product? Can that be purchased? Thank you
Hello,
the recipe looks very good and i cant wait to try it but I checked a few other recipes and in many recipes polysorbate 80 is used. I noticed you did not use it. Can you please let me know if there is any specific reason behind that? I am trying to sell products so making sure not to miss anything. Thanks !
Hey i am a big fan of all your recipes, so thanks so much for sharing! can anything be used in place of the Castile soap?
You can use any mild liquid soap you like 🙂
I tried this recipe and it was lovely the first few days then the lavender buds turned brown and and the salts looked spoiled. Any tips or suggestions?
I’m happy to try and help! I haven’t had that happen, but I wonder if your lavender buds were dried completely. That might be something to investigate, as moisture would cause color change and possible spoilage. Hope that helps!
Any idea of how many teaspoons of 240 drops equates to?
Almost 2.5 teaspoons 🙂
I did some experiments on bake and no bake my bath salts. I love the texture of baked bath salt as it looks dry and professional but I realized there’s no more scent after mixing with water. Whereas, no bake bath salt they have maintained the scent and it last pretty long on skin too. How do you bake them without losing the scent of the essential oil?
Great question! You’ll see that the amount of essential oils is pretty generous, so I find that there is still plenty of scent after baking. Another thing you could try is adding the essential oils after baking, but I’m not sure this would affect the salts clumping together or not. Hope that helps!
Hi! I made the recipe, but the flowers seem to lose their colour in the salts. It’s like they are bleeding the colour into the salts or something. How can I fix that ?
I’m happy to try and help! I haven’t had this happen. I would make sure the flowers you’re using are completely dry.
Thanks for sharing! Does it keep long?
Yes! I usually say around 6 months.
This looks so good! What a fun gift to make for others or to enjoy yourself!
Thank you!
Hello dear. I loved your recipes and tips, you are awesome!
Although it seems I made a mistake making the salts today. I strict followed the recipe and instructions (200F for 15 minutes stirring every 5 minutes) but It looks like the salts got baked instead of dried. Now everything looks like little scrambles and the flowers got dark and are not pretty anymore. Any idea about what could have gone wrong?
Sorry to hear that! I haven’t had that happen before. I wonder if you baked only the salts without the flowers, that might work better. I hope that helps!
I’ll try that! Thanks for answering I appreciate!!
Can it all be used in one bath? Other recipes I’ve see stated that 20 drops of oil are max for one bath, so should i use only a few spoonfuls? I really want to use all of it in one go lol
I usually just use several spoonfuls at a time. Maybe you could add extra epsom salt 🙂
Hello… if dont have an oven.. whats best for substitute to dry the salt?
Thanks!
Great question! If you have another source of low, even heat, like some strong sunlight, that would help 🙂
Thank you!
I will certainly try that.
Hi!
What can I use instead of the Castile soap? Could I just use more olive oil? Thankyou!
The soap is actually to act as an emulsifier to help the essential oils blend with the olive oil. If you don’t have Castile soap, you could use any liquid natural soap that you have. Hope that helps!
Can I use himalayan pink salt instead of dead sea salt or should I just leave it out if I don’t have it?
Yes, I think pink Himalayan salt would be a good substitute!
What is the shelf life for these types of salts? Also, do you have to use essential oils? If you don’t use essential oils you could eliminate the use of baking soda, Castile soap, and olive oil correct? Or do you still need these products for the life span of the salts and buds? Thank you.
The shelf life should be around 6 months. You can leave the essential oils out if you want. If you leave them out, the Castile soap and olive oil can be left out. I’d leave the baking soda in, since it is beneficial to have with the salts. Hope that helps!
Yes that helps. Thank you for replying so quickly. I want to make some for my cousin but she’s allergic to some essential oils so I want to leave them out.
One more question, since I’m leaving essential oils out – should I still bake them or is it not needed?
You’re welcome! The baking is actually to dry the salts, so that they don’t harden in the container. I would still do the baking step, even without essential oils.