Homemade Bath Salts Recipes

Learn how to make bath salts with essential oils... sweet & simple!


You'll laugh when you see how easy it is to make scented bath salts.

I make them for my mom all the time - she's big on baths and it's nice to give her something pretty and fragrant.

Bath salts are the most cleansing and therapeutic of all the aromatherapy bath recipes because they act like natural detoxifiers and pain relievers. Adding essential oils to your bath salts recipes adds even more benefits.

Deeply relaxes tight muscles. Relieves pain by helping reduce inflammation. Reduces stress, soothes your nerves and recharges your system.

Stimulates gentle detoxification. Softens your skin. Scroll down to learn more about different types of salt.

Use bath salts recipes when you're feeling particularly icky or sick. They'll help ease your achy muscles and joints, relieve your tight chest, cough and sniffles, and they'll give you a nice boost of healthy energy. Click for more aromatherapy remedies for colds, pain and stress.


Homemade Bath Salts Quick Trick

For a quick and easy 'cheat' try this: Add a cup or two of Epsom Salts to your hot running bath water, then pour in a tablespoon of your favorite aromatherapy bath oil just before you climb in. Piece of cake!

Or for an even easier cheat, get bath salts at the click of a button! Check out bath salts at Amazon.com.

Basic Bath Salts Recipe

This is my basic method for how to make bath salts -- I use it as the base for all my bath salts recipes and just change up the scents, types of salt and anything else I feel like throwing in, like lavender flowers, peppermint leaves or rose petals.


Equipment

  • Large ceramic or stainless steel bowl (not plastic; it will absorb the oils)
  • Measuring cups & spoons
  • Big mixing spoon (metal is best; wood & plastic absorb oils)
  • Pretty glass or PET plastic jars for storing your homemade bath salts


Ingredients

  • 3 cups salt such as Epsom salt or Dead Sea salt
  • 30-60 drops of your favorite essential oil or oil blend

Optional

  • 1/2 cup baking soda (softens water & skin)
  • 5-15 drops of food coloring
  • dried leaves or flowers

Quick Links - Buy Supplies

How to Make Bath Salts in 4 Easy Steps

1.

Measure your salts (and baking soda if you're using it) into your mixing bowl. Break up any clumps with your spoon or your hands.

2.

Drop in your essential oils and food coloring. Stir until the color and scent are completely mixed into the salts.

3.

Add any dried leaves or flowers and stir gently to combine. (I personally don't use them - I hate how they float around while I'm in the bath and I really hate cleaning them up afterwards.)

4.

Spoon your homemade bath salts into your jars, decorate and voila! Sweet, simple and speedy!

How to Scent Homemade Bath Salts With Essential Oils

This is where it gets fun! There's a ton of different scent blends you can make to create different moods and energies. To learn how to create your own unique blends, check out my eBook 6 Secrets for Mixing Essential Oils.

Or try one of these ideas...

Relaxing

  • 30 drops Lavender
  • 5 drops each Roman Chamomile, Geranium, Sandalwood & Ylang Ylang

Uplifting

  • 15 drops each Grapefruit & Orange
  • 10 drops Lemongrass
  • 5 drops each Peppermint & Ylang Ylang

Easing Pain

  • 30 drops Lavender
  • 10 drops each Marjoram & Peppermint
  • 5 drops each Eucalyptus & Rosemary

Choosing the Right Oils

There's so much more to essential oils than meets the eye. Their molecules are so tiny that they absorb deep into your body in a matter of moments.

If the essential oil you buy is filled with additives (to "stretch" the scent) and fragrance boosters, those potentially harmful ingredients are also absorbed straight into your body. Not ideal!

For instance, my mom and I get instant headaches with most kinds of lavender oil. That's because of the extra "lavender" scent that's added to make it smell stronger. But when it's pure lavender - nothing else - no headaches.

I've used many brands over the last 12 years or so and what I know for sure is, you get what you pay for. So I recommend buying the highest quality essential oils you can afford.

Here's how I break it out...

doTerra for highest quality. You can shop retail by clicking the Shop button at the top. Or click Join & Save to become a wholesale customer and get 25% discount.

Mountain Rose for quality on a budget. Plus they have all the other ingredients you'll need for your aromatherapy recipes, like the clay for this facial scrub recipe.

Amazon for variety and selection. Please remember to buy the best oils you can afford - there's a lot of cheap oils in the marketplace, and they just won't give you the experience you're looking for.

Cool Stuff to Know About Salt

Salt is mass-produced by evaporation of seawater or salt lakes, and also by mining rock salt.

Our bodies need salt in order to function properly. Salt helps regulate the electrical charges within our cells. It helps us absorb potassium. It helps our bodies get rid of carbon dioxide, it regulates body fluid levels and it's essential component of digestive acids. We can't survive without it, in fact.

Minerals from salt are absorbed through the skin, so when you use them in a bath, your body uses the nutrients they provide. That's what provides the therapeutic effect and makes them so good for you!


Dead Sea Salt
  • One of the best types of salt for bath salt recipes.
  • Extremely rich in minerals and trace elements.
  • Highly therapeutic and rejuvenating.
  • Good for arthritis and muscle pain.
  • Helps reduce tension and increase relaxation.
  • Good for eczema and psoriasis.
  • Gives you silky smooth skin.
  • Buy Dead Sea salt.

Epsom Salt
  • Also an excellent salt for bath salt recipes.
  • Made primarily of magnesium and sulfates rather than sodium and chloride like other types of salt.
  • Eases pain by reducing swelling and inflammation.
  • Softens and exfoliates the skin.
  • Helps detoxify the body.
  • Reduces tension, sedates the nervous system and relaxes muscles.
  • Buy epsom salt.

Himalayan Pink Salt
  • The most restorative (but also most expensive, of course!) choice for bath salt recipes.
  • Mined from the Himalayan mountains (actually, this type of salt is also found in other mountains like Hawaii and others.)
  • Said to be the purest form of salt available. 
  • Has an extremely high mineral content with over 84 minerals and trace elements; its color is the result of its high mineral and iron content.
  • Good for skin rashes, eczema, psoriasis and herpes.
  • Eases pain by reducing swelling and inflammation.
  • Helps lower blood pressure.
  • Helps detoxify the body.
  • Reduces tension, sedates the nervous system and relaxes muscles.
  • Buy Himalayan pink salt.

Sea Salt
  • Harvested from the ocean and dried by the sun.
  • Contains trace amounts of minerals including iron, magnesium, calcium, potassium, manganese, zinc and iodine.
  • Buy sea salt.

Table Salt
  • Highly refined.
  • Often mixed with a tiny amount of iodine, which is added to prevent iodine deficiency illnesses.
  • Trace minerals are usually removed during the refining process, so this is the least therapeutic of all types of salt.
  • Find it at your supermarket.

More Bath Salt Recipes

For more homemade bath salts recipes, check out these links...

Eucalyptus Epsom Salt Bath
Make this refreshing Epsom Salt bath recipe with eucalyptus and rosemary to revive your energy and clear your mind. A great pick-me-up!


Lavender Bubble Bath Salts
Make this warming, relaxing essential oil bath salt recipe to take the edge off that cranky mood. Liquid comfort to help you sleep. 


Silk n' Spice Bath Salts
Spice up your night with these earthy, exotic and deeply delicious bath salts.


Summer Rose Bath Salts
Calming, relaxing and sensuous, this sweet floral recipe takes you away from it all. Try using for stress, PMS and menopause. 

 

Tension Tamer Bath Salts
Tension and stress melt away as these uplifting bath salts help balance your nervous system (and your mood swings.)