Bath Teas
by Crystal Miller

Description: How to make your own bath teas. Great gift idea!

Using bath teas are gaining popularity as a new enjoyable bathing experience! The idea behind them is to combine certain herbs that can be simmered and steeped for about 15 minutes and then add these to your bath water. The herbs can be combined for better relaxation, or revitalization, or even calming herbs, depending on what your goal is.

After you mix your herbs together you put them in a small bag, made from cheesecloth and put them in a pan with a few cups of water. Boil them for about 15 minutes, then cover them and let them steep for awhile. This is then added to your bath water.

To simplify you could also add the herb mixture right to the pan of water and strain them through cheesecloth or a dish towel. If you don’t want to spend the time boiling, straining, waiting you can also put the herbs in a coffee filter in your coffee maker and run water through them. They don’t get quite the steeping time but the aromatic effects would be very useful as well.

Here are some recipes for bath teas that you can prepare and store in a container to use as often as you would like a nice refreshing bath. You can look for the dry herbs at health food stores or search for on-line sources.

Herb Tea for Relaxation

1 cup rosemary
1 cups lavender
1 cups rose petals
1 cup mint

Mix these ingredients together and store in a container. When you want to use them, measure out ½ cup of them and bring to a boil in 1 to 2 cups water. Turn off heat and allow to sit and steep for about 15 minutes. Strain and add to your bath water.

Here is another combination that will also provide ingredients for skin softening.

Soft and Relaxing Bath Tea Mix

1/2 cup dried mint
1/2 cup dried chamomile
1/2 cup dried lavender
1/2 cup dried rosemary
1/2 cup dried rose petals
1/2 cup ground oatmeal (you can easily grind this up in your blender)
1/2 cup powdered milk

This recipe also easily doubles or triples. Combine the above ingredients and store in a container. When you want to use them, simply put 1/2 to 1 cup in a pan and bring to a boil with 1 to 2 cups of water. Turn off heat, cover and let sit for 15 minutes to steep. Strain and add to your bath water.

Crystal Miller is a mother of 8 children and enjoys her God given role as wife, homemaker and mother! She has a homemaking and country living web site called The Family Homestead http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com and has a free monthly newsletter called Homestead Happenings. You will find sign up information on her website.