Easy Homemade Bath Gifts with Essential Oils

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Every year the holidays come around and your gift giving list gets longer and longer. Even the most inexpensive store bought gifts take a chunk of change out of your wallet. This year give a gift you make, doesn’t cost a fortune and nearly everyone will appreciate: essential oil bath gifts. 

Bath Scrub

If you bought this at a bath shop you’d pay a pretty penny. Make it yourself and it costs just pennies.

Fill a jar with sea or kosher salt. Top off with a mild oil. If you use coconut oil, keep in mind it solidifies at temperatures below 70 degrees. Mix in eight to 10 drops of essential oil. That’s it, you’re done. Package in clear glass jars or scout out cosmetic containers online. 

Liquid Bath Soap

This is an easy recipe to turn a bar of mild soap into a liquid soap for your bath or shower.

Grate the bar of soap. Put the grated soap into ½ gallon of water with one tablespoon of glycerin. You can buy glycerin at the drug store, although you may have to ask where it’s stocked.

Heat and stir until the soap is completely melted. The pot may look like it’s holding soapy, cloudy water, have patience.

Let the soapy mixture cool down and set covered for 10 to 12 hours. The soap should thicken. If it’s too thick, beat with an electric mixer adding just a bit of water until it’s the right consistency. 

Add your essential oils right before packaging.

Men would appreciate an energizing peppermint oil soap. Or try sandalwood essential oil. An herbal mixture works as well. 

Bath Soaps With a Short Cut

Making soap from scratch involves combining some sort of fat or oil with lye and heat — not for the faint hearted. Instead take a short cut and start with bars of clear already made glycerin soap available online or probably in your neighbourhood drug store. Grate the bar of soap and melt over low heat. It’s iffy to use a microwave to melt the soap. It’s tempting to microwave at too high a temp and for too long a time. That ruins the soap. 

Add your essential oils and a little food coloring if you like. Stir well. Pour into soap moulds or candy molds rubbed with petroleum jelly. If you time it right, you can also cut out shapes with cookie cutters. Pour the melted soap onto a cookie sheet. Wait until it starts to harden, but is still warm, so the cookie cutter can cut through the soap. Wait too long and it’s too difficult to cut.  

Besides the essential oil, add in raw oatmeal for a soothing scrub bar. Ground almonds for an exfoliating bar or dried herbs just for fun. 

Bath bombs

Baking soda and citric acid are the components of a Bath Bomb. This is what causes the fizz. Epsom salts are popular for relieving aching or tense muscles. Epsom salts may be used to enhance magnesium levels in the body, which can be reduced by stress.

Coconut oil is a good source of Vitamin E, making it ideal for moisturizing the skin. Adding essential oils to a bath bomb may offer several therapeutic advantages. Listen to your body and choose an oil that will aid you in your current state!

We didn’t use food dye in this recipe because we wanted to keep things simple. We like natural food dyes if you want to add a little color. If you’re making them for kids, you may hide small toys inside.

Both fractionated coconut oil and jojoba oil were used to make this bath bomb. I liked the coconut oil since it left my skin smooth and moisturized, similar to body lotion. Sweet almond oil might also be utilized with comparable results.

We used a 2″ metal mold, but you could also use a shaped one such as a silicone rose mould. These take longer to dry because of their flat bottoms, but they are easy to store and make excellent presents.

• In a mixing bowl, combine the baking soda, citric acid, and Epsom salts. Break up any clumps with a fork and mix thoroughly.
• In a separate container, combine half coconut oil and the essential oil of your choice.
• Add the wet ingredients one at a time to the baking soda mixture, stirring continuously. It’s critical not to pour the liquid too quickly. The reaction will be premature if you do so. If the mixture appears to be too dry, use the spray bottle to add a little water bit by bit in small amounts.
• Slowly stir the ingredients together with a spoon. The mixture should look like wet sand.
• Place the opened mold in a pan as you fill it with water. Fill both sides of the mold and press them together firmly. The two halves of the mold should fit tightly together.
• Remove the bath bomb from the mold and leave it out overnight to dry.

This makes 3-5 bath bombs per batch.

Homemade bath gifts

You can make these homemade bath gifts with any essential oils and give them for Christmas or birthdays or just keep them as a treat for yourself.