Making Your Own Aromatherapy Bath Salts
Creating your own bath salts is a terrific way to enjoy aromatherapy at home. Surprisingly, bath salts are very affordable to make and require no harsh ingredients. In fact, the main ingredients in bath salts include baking soda, table salt and epsom salt. Each of these are commonly found in a local grocery or retail store and are safe to use. Certain bath products found in most retail stores contain harsh ingredients that can irritate the skin. The advantage to creating your own bath salts is that you know which ingredients are going into your product and you can have the peace of mind in knowing that they are safe to use.
Individuals can make their own aromatherapy bath salts by starting with a large mixing bowl and a spoon or other similar utensil. The next step is to add 3 cups of epsom salt, 2 cups of baking soda and 1 cup of table salt into the mixing bowl. Once each of the ingredients are added, begin mixing them with your hand or the spoon. Once mixing is complete, slowly add food colouring to the mixture. Normal food colouring will work fine and should be added according to the colour that you prefer your bath salts to be. Adding more drops will darken the colour and adding fewer will make it softer. Some individuals enjoy mixing the colours in order to get a unique hue, but this mixture should be done prior to placing the colouring into the mixing bowl with your other ingredients.
The final step is to add essential oils until the desired scent is achieved. The best way to determine when the scent is perfect is simply by using your own judgement. Bath salts should be strongly scented in order to allow for less salts to be required for each bath, which will enable them to last longer.
Using the steps and ingredients as noted above, you can also use a bowl with a lid and shake the mixture, food colouring and essential oils until it is perfectly blended. This will save you time from stirring but, otherwise, the procedure to create your own aromatherapy bath salts is the same.
Aromatherapy: New Age Fad or Ancient Wisdom?
Aromatherapy refers to the use of essential oils that have been extracted from plants, shrubs and trees. These essential oils can be used for a wide variety of purposes. They can be used to treat medical conditions or alleviate psychological ailments. Aromatherapy can also be used simply for pleasure, to help improve your mood or to reduce your stress. The essential oils of aromatherapy have the power to affect both your physical and mental state.
Aromatherapy has recently been labelled a New Age fad, but the practice of aromatherapy has a long history. The often negative use of the New Age label causes an unfortunate prejudice against a practice that has many potential benefits.
The effective use of aromatherapy requires considerable knowledge and expertise. The essential oils of aromatherapy can be applied in a wide variety of situations. They have been proven effective in treating both serious and minor ailments. Even when aromatherapy cannot provide a cure, it can improve an individual’s mood.
We often practice aromatherapy on an everyday basis without realising it. When we choose aromas, bath oils, and air fresheners, we usually choose based on what we like, or on how the fragrance makes us feel. The refreshing scent of a pine forest, the pleasurable aromas of herbs, or the many other daily experiences we have with the scents of plant-derived substances indicate that we are actually practicing and experiencing aromatherapy in many ways.
The practice of aromatherapy for treating ailments actually predates chemical-based medicine. The essential oils of aromatherapy have been used for hundreds of years in herbal medicine, disease prevention, and in religious and public ceremonies.
The proven benefits of plant-based therapies are being overlooked in favour of artificial substitutes. It’s easy to forget that many commonly used pharmaceuticals were originally derived from plants. Many also doubt that something applied externally could possibly have an internal effect. But the answer to many of today’s diseases has been with us from the beginning, stored in the plant life around us. Aromatherapy unlocks the power of these essential oils and applies it for our benefit.