Worth its Salt

My DH loves taking baths, and recently ran out of his favourite commercial bath salt flavoured with Valerian and Hops.

Since I recently had the opportunity to refill my essential oil coffer, I decided to chip in a small bottle of Valerian so I could experiment with DIY bath salts too. 

Ta-Dah! My first attempt, ever. 

It only took a few minutes to make the stuff, since I didn't want to fiddle with clays and whatnots - although it is a personal choice and shouldn't really make a difference in time required (anything from 3-5 minutes), since mixing and blending ingredients to scents is all there is to it. 

I'd like to add that I personally dislike the scent of Valerian... (and if DH realized I'd put in Lavender he'd freak out) so this is really a labour of love, lol.

Sleep Tight Bath Salts

Ingredients:

Epsom salts, ca 400g

Sea salt, ca 100g

1 teaspoon dried rosemary (from the kitchen)

Essential oils per 200g Epsom salts: 

15 drops Valerian - calming, and grounding, has soporific effect.

10 drops Patchouli - reduces tension and anxiety, uplifting. 

5 drops Lavender (Croatian) - cure-all. softens the sharpness of Valerian scent somewhat.

How I did it: 

1. Fill 500ml/g air-tight jam jar with 200g Epsom salts (or almost half full). 

2. Add first essential oil, use wooden spoon to break down any clumps and give the salts a good stir.  

3. Repeat step 2 with other essential oils. 

4. Add in half of the sea salt, close lid and give the mix a good shake for 40 seconds - 1 minute.

5. Add in the rest of the Epsom salts, and repeat steps 2 - 3, then add in the rest of the sea salt and rosemary before giving it all a final shake for another minute.

6. Leave to stand overnight. 

Use: 

Fill tub, add 1 tablespoon to bathwater.

Most people use much less EO in their DIY formulations, only a total of about 20-30 drops per 500g or so... but on the bottle it says 6 drops Valerian to a bathtub, which sounds excessive by comparison - but works a treat according to DH. So I've doubled the EO dose in my formula - but really, it's all about how strongly scented you want your salts to be. 

I've seen videos of people using a large container to mix all the salts and scents and then put it all in a jar, but then I saw this clever way of doing it, putting it all in a jar and shaking it all together which saves me the trouble of washing up an extra bowl. :) 

I opted to use a small wooden spoon to even out the clumps formed when you drip in the essential oil - they break apart rather easily, and don't seem to clump up the way flour does when water is added (which is what I expected to see - and no one seems to talk about it either, which can be frustrating if it's the first time you're doing it). If you shake it hard enough, I am fairly sure the clumps will break down just as well, but I felt safer mixing it all up with a spoon before giving it a vigorous shake.

The glass jar is a normal jam/chutney jar with rubber gasket on the cover, supposed to hold around 500ml of jam. I probably bought them from a local ÖoB store (Överskottsbolaget, the Swedish equivalent of a surplus store). Epsom salts are surprisingly easy to get a hold of here in Sweden, you just have to google around a little to find the best prices. I bought some from med24.se mostly because I was already buying some other things from them... (They are one of the few companies that sell original Ricola sweets, for joy! Locally the stores tend to sell Läkerol or Vicks menthol sweets, not Ricola.)

The essential oils brands: I bought the latest batch from a wholesaler in the UK, oils4life.co.uk. (Valerian and Lavender), the Patchouli is a different brand, Amphora, from an earlier purchase.

Valerian is one of those scents where you either love or hate, just like patchouli and vetiver - and they can ALL be described as having various degrees of "deep, rich, woody and musky" aromas. I'm OK with patchouli, and verging on OK with vetiver, Personally, I think Valerian smells like a sharp, dirty something that's been sitting in the compost for too long; patchouli is a slight sweet-woody earthy scent, while vetiver smells a bit like forest mushrooms on the verge of being off. Unfortunately, while DH finds the Valerian soothing and helps him sleep, it makes my teeth go on edge, but then makes me feel sluggish instead of invigorated, so it's really not a scent for me...

Update: DH says it works, so I seem to have the proportions right. :D

xoxo