This homemade bath salts recipe not only makes a great do-it-yourself project to pamper yourself with a little self-care at home but also makes the perfect DIY gift for just about any occasion.
This Epsom salt bath with essential oils will help soothe sore muscles, moisturize skin and relax you into your next bath.
This easy DIY bath salts recipe is perfect for a Sunday spa day at home or just when you need to relieve tension and reduce stress.
Plus, they’re pretty simple to make!
I found interesting new research that even suggests that soaking in a hot bath for 20 minutes can have similar benefits as gentle exercise – just another reason to love taking long hot baths.
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Welcome to the most luxurious easy Epsom salt bath with essential oils recipe on the planet. It looks like clouds from Heaven.
This Epsom salt bath with essential oils not only nourishes your skin during the winter months but is also the best stress and tension relief. You can add this homemade bath salts recipe to your Christmas gift basket.
These bath salts also make a great gift for birthdays, Mother’s Day, wedding showers, baby showers, or as hostess gifts.
Why Making Your Own Bath Salts?
With dropping temperatures, our skin dries up quicker than in summer. Personally, my skin tends to dry by summer; therefore, a hot bath enriched with fragrant bath salts is a must for me. It’s surprisingly easy to prepare your own blend at home.
I started making my own bath salts with essential oils about 2 years ago at Christmas. They instantly gained a permanent spot in my homemade repertoire. I couldn’t believe how easy they were to make!
Just a few simple ingredients, a Mason jar, and a pretty label, and I had a whole bunch of homemade gifts ready to go for everybody on my Christmas list and a jar for just pennies.
The first reason why I started making my own beauty products was to avoid harmful substances.
Commercial cosmetics (all those luxury and store-bought fancy skincare products) are usually laden with harmful chemicals and preservatives.
I use only all-natural ingredients here and avoid any type of colourings. The natural pink hue of the Himalayan sea salt is all you need!
Don’t forget to pin this Epsom salt bath with essential oils!
So, if you’ve wanted to make your own homemade bath salts for some time, keep reading.
Another reason was to find a natural remedy for my severe menstrual cramps and endometriosis flare-ups.
Sometimes I add some extra magnesium flakes to my Epsom salt bath with essential oils. Magnesium is very effective in relaxing muscles. This is the perfect relief when the cramps hit.
If you don’t have magnesium flakes, the magnesium in the Epsom salt can help ease muscle tension, while the coarse salt and baking soda can make the bath more pleasant (more on that below).
The third reason was to cut some costs.
Um, have you seen how much bath salts cost lately?! My goodness. Making them at home will save you a ton of money.
And homemade bath salts are cost-effective.
All in for the bath salts recipe (about 5 cups total), I paid about $2 or less for each ingredient averaged out! That’s roughly $10 or less per batch.
( I already had the essential oils, but I think they are around $15-20 each and last forever ).
You’ll love this homemade bath salts recipe because it is:
- inexpensive
- easy to make (nonfancy tools)
- healthy
- soothing
- smells great
- beautiful
- has flexible ingredients (so you can pretty much use what you have on hand)
- great for gifts.
Benefits of Epsom Salt Bath with Essential Oils
Bath salts made with essential oils aren’t just a pretty homemade gift. For starters, an Epsom salt bath with essential oils is a great way to detox and relieve muscle tension and stress, as well as increase magnesium absorption.
A hot bath is an inexpensive and effective remedy, free from side effects and easily accessible to most people.
Stabilize Mood & Relieve Stress: Epsom salt is good for your mind. Everyone knows that a warm bath can offer a stress release, but by adding bath salts with essential oils, you get triple benefits. Pick relaxing and calming essential oils like Roman chamomile or cedarwood.
Deeply Clean Your Skin: Bath salts can soften rough, dry skin, exfoliate dead skin cells, soak, and allow them to work for you.
Relax Muscles & Relieve Pain: Hot baths work like heat packs, except the effects reach your whole body, not just a targeted area of pain or stiffness. A hot bath also triggers a combined nervous system and cardiovascular system response.
Improve Skin Hydration: Bath salts not only soften the skin, but with the added oils, you will get well-hydrated skin. Use nourishing lavender and jojoba oil, perfect for combating dry skin.
Detoxify Your Body: Draw out the toxins from your body with detoxifying natural salts and essential oils.
Bath salts are known to help balance your hormones by replenishing your body’s magnesium, soothing cramps, and lowering inflammation.
Homemade Bath Salts Ingredients
Epsom Salt
Epsom salt is not actually salt at all! Epsom salt is made of hydrated magnesium sulfate. Magnesium and sulfate are known for their hydrating properties, making Epsom salt a popular choice for bath salts.
Epsom salts are probably the most famous aid in helping to relax sore muscles. You can absolutely use Epsom salts on their own, but combining them with sea salt and herbal remedies helps ramp up their effectiveness.
Coarse Sea Salt
Sea salt helps cleanse the pores on your skin while balancing oil production and retaining moisture from within. Its anti-bacterial properties discourage the growth of bacteria responsible for breakouts and acne. Sea salt exfoliates the skin naturally, while its minerals nourish the skin.
I love the coarse pink Himalayan sea salt because it’s beautiful, high-quality, and at a great price.
Baking Soda
Baking soda has cleansing and detoxifying properties that may help to purify your body and boost immunity. Baking soda helps dissolve oils on your skin and makes a great addition to a hot bath. Make sure you’re using baking soda (it’s cheap!), NOT baking powder.
Essential Oils
Adding essential oils can turn your bath salts from simply moisturizing to something that really addresses what is going on with your skin.
Dry Flowers or Herbs (optional)
You can add a few dried flower tablespoons to make your homemade bath salts even more beautiful.
Nourishing Skin Oil (optional)
Salt baths can easily irritate and dry out your skin, but these salts are pre-combined with two super moisturizers – cocoa butter and sweet almond oil. Adding oil also shortens the shelf life of your bath salts because oils can spoil. If you add oil, use your bath salts within three months.
How to Make Bath Salts
The whole process of making your own bath salts is fairly simple and straightforward. Combine together Epsom salt and good coarse salt (like Himalayan). Add to the mix baking soda to and mix! You’re done! You may add essential oils or herbs if desired.
If you want to make moisturizing bath salts, melt 2 tablespoons of cocoa butter in a medium glass bowl. I use a makeshift double boiler approach with the bowl sitting on top of a saucepan with a couple of inches of boiling water.
You could also use a couple of quick bursts in the microwave. Remove from heat and add 2 tablespoons of almond oil. Pour in two cups of sea salt and stir until butter and oil are evenly distributed. Spread the salt out on a cookie sheet and let it air dry. This will take about a day.
What you will love about these homemade bath salts is that the recipe is easily customizable. This homemade Epsom salt bath with essential oils recipe uses already shelf-stable ingredients.
As such, you can store yours for about six months. You won’t believe how easy this is to make! This is a DIY bath salts recipe with Himalayan salt. I’m a HUGE fan of Himalayan salt, it gives a natural pink colour to my DIY bath salts.
But before you just drop essential oils into the bathwater or even mix them with your Epsom salts before adding to the bath, pause. Doing that can leave you with painfully irritated skin and make your bathtime anything but soothing.
Essential oils are potent and can irritate the skin. But carrier oils–for example, jojoba oil, coconut oil, hemp seed oil, or sweet almond oil–will dilute the essential oils. The carrier oil will also disperse the essential oil better throughout your bathwater. So when adding essential oils to the tub, you’ll always want to mix them with carrier oils first.
Great all-purpose bath salt is made with 2 parts Epsom salt, 2 parts Coarse sea salt, and 1 part baking soda. The salts contain minerals that are absorbed through the skin to help ease muscle soreness and relieve tension, while the baking soda soothes the skin surface.
How to choose essential oils for your Epsom salt bath
If you search online, you’ll find some formulations on how to use essential oils in bath salts.
When adding essential oils to the bath, you should dilute them correctly.
Contrary to what you might read online and even in some older essential oil and herbal books, many common bath ingredients won’t safely dilute essential oils through your bath. These include:
- Epsom salts
- Sea salt
- Baking soda
- Dry clays
- Milk
- Honey
This easy homemade bath salt recipe uses essential oils. While they aren’t necessary, adding them can turn your butter from being simply moisturizing to something that really addresses what is going on with your skin.
If essential oils aren’t thoroughly diluted through your bathwater, you risk experiencing skin irritations like redness, itching, stinging, tingling, burning, welts, or even slight swelling. Depending on the type of essential oil in your bathwater and how much you add, these reactions can be quite severe and painful.
The warm water makes your skin extra sensitive and more permeable. So anything it’s in contact with will have a greater impact.
Always apply a moisturizer after a bath or shower.
Fortunately, there’re a few simple options for diluting essential oils in your bath:
1. Add them to a carrier oil, like jojoba, coconut, castor, and almond oil, and then add them to your bath.
2. Add them to a bath or shower gel
3. Add them to a liquid Castile soap
My favourite way to add essential oils to an Epsom salt bath, or any other bath for that matter, combines two of the methods above for one super simple, easy-to-clean, and skin-nourishing bathtime treat.
Relaxing blend: Try 10 drops lavender + 5 drops vetiver
Need to be energized and refreshed? Try lavender, lemon, and grapefruit.
Soft skin blend? Try 5 drops lavender + 5 drops frankincense + 5 drops palmarosa.
For essential oils, use whatever you like, with the suggestions above being good for different issues. I used rose, and orange, which were really heavenly smelling, especially combined with the fragrance of the coconut oil. Somehow I felt like a creamsicle :-).
I also use lavender, which is very soothing, and geranium.
If you need a muscle-relaxing blend try 10 drops peppermint + 5 drops rosemary.
Some essential oils can irritate your skin, especially in full-body applications or sensitive areas.
Essential Oils to Avoid for Your Epsom Salt Bath
- peppermint
- cinnamon
- clove
- oregano
Don’t be scared if you miss some of the ingredients for this easy homemade whipped body butter recipe.
Tutorial How to Make Epsom Salt Bath with Essential Oils
1. Mix Epsom salt with Coarse salt and Baking soda.
2. Add essential oils of your choice to a carrier oil and mix.
3. If you want to moisturize your skin more, melt 2 tablespoons of cocoa butter in a medium glass bowl and add 2 tbsp of jojoba oil. Mix well.
4. Combine salts, butter, and essential oils and mix.
5. Spread the salt out on a cookie sheet and let it air dry. This will take about a day.
6. Transfer into a glass bowl or a jar.
7. Store in a cool and dry place.
8. Use about ½ cup in each hot bath.
Epsom Salt Bath with Essential Oils Recipe
Ingredients:
- ½ cup Epsom salts
- ½ cup sea salt
- ½ cup baking soda
- 10-15 drops of essential oils (find recipe ideas below)
- carrier oil (like jojoba or coconut)
- 2 tbsp dry rose petals and lavender (optional)
Method:
1. Mix Epsom salt with Coarse salt and Baking soda.
2. Add essential oils of your choice (or dry herbs and flowers) and mix.
3. Transfer into a glass bowl or a jar.
4. Store in a cool and dry place.
5. Use about ½ cup in each hot bath.
Moisturizing Epsom salt bath with essential oils
Ingredients:
- ½ cup Epsom salts
- ½ cup sea salt
- ½ cup baking soda
- 10-15 drops of essential oils (find recipe ideas below)
- carrier oil (like coconut, jojoba)
- 2 tbsp dry rose petals and lavender (optional)
- 2 tbsp cocoa butter
- 2 tbsp jojoba oil
Method:
1. Mix Epsom salt with Coarse salt and Baking soda.
2. Add essential oils of your choice to a carrier oil and mix.
3. Melt 2 tablespoons of cocoa butter in a medium glass bowl and add 2 tbsp of jojoba oil. Mix well.
4. Combine salts, butters, and essential oils and mix.
5. Spread the salt out on a cookie sheet and let it air dry. This will take about a day.
6. Transfer into a glass bowl or a jar.
7. Store in a cool and dry place.
8. Use about ½ cup in each hot bath.
I’d love to hear from you about this DIY beauty recipe, do you think this was helpful to learn how to make your own body cream or body butter?
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xo,
Lora
Homemade bath salts FAQs
Making bath salts is a pretty easy process, but there are a few issues you might encounter and things to keep in mind. Here they are.
Why are my bath salts wet?
Adding oils can lead to wet bath salts. Especially depending on how much oil you want to use in your recipe. Baking is a way to prevent the salts from becoming wet and clumpy.
Keeping your finished salts in an air-tight, dry space also helps to keep them dry. You probably store your homemade bath salts in your bathroom, which is a naturally more humid area of your home. So an airtight container helps to prevent that extra humidity from making your bath salts
What does baking soda do in bath salts?
Baking soda does an awesome job of helping to soften your skin. I loved putting a bit in Ramona’s bath when she was a baby and had any skin irritations. In bath salts, baking soda helps with your overall skin health.
How do you moisturize bath salts?
Salt baths can easily irritate and dry out your skin, but these salts are pre-combined with two super moisturizers – cocoa butter and sweet almond oil. Follow the recipe below to learn how to make bath salts of your own!
