When it’s cold, rainy or snowy outside, nothing beats a nice hot bath. Luckily, there are lots of ready made bath salts out there you can buy. Even more lucky, with only minimal effort, you can replicate those bath salts in much larger amounts at much lower costs.

One of our favorites here at Incognito Muse is Himalayan bath salts. Herbivore makes a fantastic one but at $18 for only 8 oz. oooof. This is our recipe for a relaxing Himalayan bath salt at a fraction of the cost. The Herbivore ingredient list calls for a mix of Pacific Sea Salt and Himalayan Pink Salt. To up the soothing, muscle relaxing factor, we’re using epsom salt aka magnesium sulfate and Himalayan Pink Salt instead. Enjoy and stay warm and toasty!

Ingredients

• 1 bag of Epsom Salt (4lb bag by Amazon’s in house brand for $4.49)
• 1 bottle of Himalayan Pink Sea Salt (18 oz container from T.J. Maxx for around $6-8. This bottle happens to be a fine grind, you can also use a more coarse grind salt. In recent years, we’ve found T.J. Maxx has a surprising good selection in store of spices, salts and random food goods.)
• Essential oils (for this recipe we’re using Vanilla $18.30 for .5 fl oz. and Ylang Ylang III $10.43 for .25 fl oz. both by Aura Cacia. Whole Foods sells lots of Aura Cacia essential oils, though Vanilla and Ylang Ylang were more difficult to find. If you know of a local herb/oil shop, please try there! Always nice to shop local when you can – plus shop owners can be a great source of knowledge to explore other essential oils and customize your bath salts)
• Airtight container (We’re using an old one from Ikea, but you could easily use a ziploc bag, old plastic tupperware, etc. Just make sure the container is clean and free of any odors, etc.)
• Mixing bowl for mixing ingredients
• Disposable rubber or latex glove (optional)

Start by mixing 2 parts epsom salt to 1 part Himalayan sea salt in the mixing bowl. For the 17 oz. jar we’re using, that’s about 1 cup epsom salt and 1/2 cup Himalayan sea salt. If you’re not sure how much you need, we suggest starting by putting 1 cup of epsom salt to your airtight container and adding to it 1 cup at a time until it’s about 1/2 full. This leaves room for the Himalayan sea salt. Then pour out the epsom salt into the mixing bowl. Use 1/2 the amount of the epsom salt for the Himalayan sea salt. You can mix with a rubber spatula or spoon, but we prefer really getting into the salt by using our (be-gloved) hand. Our preferred technique – scrunching up a bunch then swirling the fingers.

For our 1 cup epsom salt, 1/2 cup Himalayan sea salt, we are using 15 drops combined total of essential oils – 10 drops of vanilla, 5 drops of Ylang Ylang. You can adjust this based on your own personal preferences, just don’t be shy about putting in oil! It can take more than you’d think. We like to put in a few drops at a time, scrunching to break apart any clumps and swirling the salt so the oil is evenly distributed.

Pour into your airtight container and store somewhere cool and dry until your next bath. We usually use a large handful or two per bath.