www.4haircare.com.au Turn a plain old soak into a real retreat with bath salts you make yourself. Start with about salts. Mix in several drops of an aromatic bath oil (available at bath and beauty stores) and, if you wish, dried fragrant plants, such as lavender or eucalyptus. Pour into a jar for yourself or to give as a gift. Use a few spoonfuls of salts per bath; to keep herbs from floating, spoon the mixture into a spice sachet (available at gourmet grocery stores).
Ingredients:
- 4 cups Epsom salts
- 1 cup course ground sea salt, high quality (preferably Dead Sea Salts or Celtic Sea Salts)
- 10 drops food coloring, optional
- 30 to 40 drops essential oil (aromatherapy oil), optional
- 1 cup baking soda
- 3 Tablespoons dried flowers or herbs, optional
How to Use in a Bath
For a standard-sized bathtub, simply add a cup of bath salts to the water and allow to dissolve. Double it for a garden tub. Do not use bath salts with dried flowers in them in a tub with jets (the flowers will clog them).
Some experts say that you get the most health benefit from a salt bath when you keep the water only lukewarm (a little above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, or 38 degrees Celsius). This temperature encourages optimal skin-absorption of the minerals in the salts. If you are using bath salts for the health benefits of the minerals, this would definitely be advisable. Otherwise, just set your bath at whatever temperature that you find most comfortable.
Also, when using a detox or illness-prevention bath salt mix, use two cups of bath salts mix in your bath instead of one. And a detox bath is one situation in which you actually want hot water, because higher water temperatures encourage the body to release toxins and then draws those toxins away from the skin as the water cools.
If you don’t want the herbs or dried flowers to float freely in the bath or go down the drain, you can tie your salts into a layer or two of cheese cloth and let it sit under the running water. The salt should dissolve out and the herbs will stay inside the packet. Be sure to squeeze it a few times to make sure the salt dissolves and the herbs are able to release their infusion.
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