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The Secret of Making Bath Salts

August 13, 2007 |

There is nothing in the world like a nice warm bath with bath salts containing pure essential oils to help relax and soothe your mind and body! Giving scented bath salts for the holidays, birthdays or just to give to a good friend also makes a welcome gift!

Once you have made these gifts with your own two hands what isn’t so nice is if the bath salts are hard as a rock when the recipient goes to use them! (Yes, it has happened to me, much to my embarrassment!) When the essential oils or fragrance oils are added to a salt blend - many times what can happen is that the bath salts absorb the moisture from the oils and then the salts turn hard as a rock. To have your salts nice and free-flowing you must add an ingredient called “malto dextrin.”

Malto dextrin is a natural carbohydrate that aborbs moisture and also helps the bath salts to retain their scent. It is used in the food, beer-making, and cosmetic industries, is readily available and best of all…..CHEAP! I purchase mine from BrewSource.com at the current price of $1.50 per pound.

To make your own bath salts first mix together mix the following together:

  • ½ cup of Malto Dextrin
  • 2 drams (160 drops, or 1 ½ teaspoon) of essential oils or fragrance oils

Mix the oils into the malto dextrin until it becomes a crumbly mixture, then add that mixture to 4lbs of epsom salts. (4 pounds of epsom salts is one carton of salts that you can buy at the drug, grocery or Wal-mart stores.) Mix well and check out how your blend smells. If it’s too weak, add more oils until you get the desired aroma. If it’s too strong, add more salts. Then what I do after I adjust the scent is shake, shake, shake the salts in a large zip lock baggie. Once that is accomplished you’re ready to package your bath salts in an airtight container and give as gifts or just keep for yourself.

If you try this recipe, please let me know how it turns out for you!

*note: do not put scented bath salts in tins as the oils in the salts will rust the tins. Line the tin with a plastic baggie first then add the salts.

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5 Comments so far

  1. Barbe Saint John on August 13, 2007 10:21 pm

    Thanks for that Kim!!!! I always wondered my homemade salts got weird!

  2. Kimberly Ayers on August 14, 2007 1:18 pm

    So glad I could help out! I made about 12 tins of salts one year for gifts and every single one of them was hard and the inside of the tins rusted….lol

  3. Corris on October 8, 2007 7:14 am

    Thanks for sharing the ingredient tip! I am teaching my craft club how to make bath salts for the holidays and I will be sure to share your story.

  4. stikilines » Blog Archive » The Secret of Making Bath Salts on November 5, 2007 8:09 am

    [...] all the details here [...]

  5. sheane32 on February 11, 2008 2:40 pm

    maybe you can add some color to your bath salts as well. But add it the same way with adding the fragrance, by drops. This gives you finer control on the color of the salts since you don’t want your bath water’s color to be overpowering.

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