This is just a quick post to let you know about the new aromatherapy wax melt scents available at SubEarthan Cottage. I now offer Lemon Mint, Lavender Rosemary, Patchouli Orange and Lavender essential oil soy wax melts. I also still have Pumpkin Lavender and Frankincense and Myrrh fragrance oil scented soy wax melts for those who love those scents year round.
Creating your own aromatherapy 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. The advantage to creating your own bath salts is that you can tailor the recipe to your needs and preferences. This way, you also know that the ingredients are going into your product safe for you to use.
First, you’ll need a large mixing bowl and spoon reserved for this type of project. Essential oils are not easily washed out, especially if you use plastic, so keep this bowl separate from your food prep bowls. 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. You can also add pink Himalayan salt or sea salt instead of table salt. Once each of the ingredients are added, begin mixing them with your hand or the spoon.
If you’d like to color your bath salts, food coloring is a great option. If I’m coloring my bath salts, I try to match the color to the intended purpose of the bath salts. For example, if I’m making lavender bath salts for relaxation, I would choose a calming color like blue or purple.
Once mixing is complete, slowly add the food coloring to the mixture. Adding more drops will darken the color and adding fewer will make it softer. If you’re blending colors, such as blue and red to make purple, mix them before adding to the bath salts. Otherwise, you will end up with splotches of red and blue, not an even purple.
The final step is to add essential oils until the desired scent is achieved. While I have made lavender bath salts by adding the lavender essential oil directly to the salt mixture, it is best to dilute the essential oils in a carrier oil. This is especially important with things like peppermint essential oil that could be very uncomfortable in a bath if not diluted properly (essential oils do not dilute in water!)
I like to use 1-2 tablespoons of carrier oil and add the essential oils until I get the scent level I’m needing. Ten drops of essential oil per cup of bath salts is a good guideline to start. I then add the diluted essential oils to the salt mixture and blend well.
If you’d prefer not to use essential oils, you can use skin safe fragrance oils or a bit of your favorite perfume. Just be absolutely sure anything you add is made to use on skin. I would use the same method for adding the fragrance as for essential oils.
For the best results, store your bath salts in an airtight container. I like using glass canning jars because they are reusable, the essential oils don’t get embedded into the glass, and they are pretty. If you choose to use glass too, just be careful not to drop them in the tub.
I do offer aromatherapy bath salts in my shop, so check them out if you’d prefer not to make them yourself. 🙂
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Aroma is very powerful. We all have certain scents that bring back memories or evoke certain thoughts and feelings. It’s no wonder, then, that for thousands of years people have used scents to evoke a physical response and to heal. Strong evidence was found to link aromatherapy to many ancient traditions. Though aromatic oils have been used to treat and cure various ailments and conditions for centuries, the formal study on their properties only started in 1928.
In its simplest form, aromatherapy is the use of scent, usually in the form of essential plant oils for therapeutic purposes. The essential oils are normally used to relieve a person from stress and a variety of stress-related conditions. They are also used for promoting a person’s general well being and invigorating the body and psyche.
Aromatherapy works by inducing our olfactory nerve cells with aromatic oils, which then carries the message to our limbic system in the brain. The limbic system is the part of the brain responsible for controlling memory and emotions.
Aromatherapy is concerned in the workings of both our physical and emotional selves. Physically, aromatherapy helps in relieving specific conditions by stimulating our nervous, immune and circulatory systems. In emotions, however, they work by evoking pleasant memories and uplifting our mood.
Although the medical community is not in agreement over whether aromatherapy in itself is instrumental to healing various medical conditions, the idea of recovery through aromatherapy is widely accepted. Think of eucalyptus for easing cold symptoms, minty or peppery salves for soothing achy muscles and lavender, rose or frankincense for relieving stress.
Essential oils are derived from the distillation of the parts of a plant. They can come from the leaves, roots, flowers, stems or bark. They hold the true essence of the plants from which they originally came in high concentration. Though termed as oil, essential oils normally do not have all of the real properties of oil. It is important to note that, like oil, essential oils do not dilute in water. Their high concentration means that they should not be ingested or used without properly diluting them in a carrier oil first.
Essential oils are used in a variety of methods. A few are through inhalation, by blending them with a carrier oil and adding them to bathwater, or by the application of the diluted oil on the body.
You should only use pure essential oils for aromatherapy. You want to look for 100% essential oils, not fragrance oils when choosing oils for aromatherapy. Be aware, though that labels like “therapeutic grade” do not have a standardized meaning, nor are essential oils FDA approved.
The following is a list of the most common oils used in aromatherapy. First are the common carrier oils (also known as vegetable oils or base oils).
Next are some of the most commonly used essential oils. Everyone has their own preference, so expect some variation depending on the practitioner.
Below are some essential oils that are not recommended to use in aromatherapy. This is especially true if you are not supervised by a professional, licensed aromatherapist. This is not an extensive list, so please, know your essential oil before using it. Remember, essential oils are highly concentrated. Just because something is safe as a food does not mean it is safe as an essential oil.
You’ll find aromatherapists in a variety of work environments including in private practice, natural health clinics, health clubs, spas and holistic medical practices, among others.
While there is limited formal research on aromatherapy, therapists and physicians often prescribe aromatic essential oils for a range of complaints. These include colds and flus, insomnia, sinusitis, migraines, digestive problems and muscle pains. Most people are familiar with using lavender for insomnia or peppermint and eucalyptus for congestion. While I’ve probably said this about a million times by now, essential oils should never be taken orally. They should also be diluted in a carrier oil and used sparingly at first until you know how you react to them.
If you’re interested in learning more to begin using aromatherapy yourself, check out my 9 Tips For Aromatherapy Beginners.
If you’d like to read some of the research on the medicinal use of essential oils, here are a few articles for you:
The Effectiveness of Aromatherapy in Reducing Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Aromatherapy: Do Essential Oils Really Work?
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Good morning! I hope everyone who celebrates had a happy holiday weekend, and to everyone else, I hope your weekend was also awesome.
Between children, cancer treatment and just life in general, things have been pretty hectic. I’ve often complained that I feel like I took better care of myself before I was diagnosed. My diet has definitely suffered, and too much of my spare time lately is spent “doom scrolling”.
There’s nothing wrong with comfort food and relaxing with whatever form of entertainment for a while, but I feel like it’s time to start focusing on getting myself healthy beyond fighting breast cancer. I have two Kadcyla treatments remaining (yay!). That will conclude my “active” cancer treatment. I still have years of estrogen-blocking medicine, but a pill a day is very different that multiple doctors appointments in a month, or week, and chemo fatigue. I am totally looking forward to it, but also worry that, without the constant business of treatment, I will be left feeling a little, “what now?”
To help me focus on my health, and give me some direction to all my new free time, I want to focus not just on diet, but things like aromatherapy, herbalism, yoga, meditation and journaling. These are all things I’ve thoroughly enjoyed in the past but have gotten put aside in all the chaos.
To keep me focused, I will be sharing some of that information here, both as informative articles and candid posts about my personal experiences. There will still be plenty of crafty tips and tutorials, because creating is something that I have to do. (Remembering to photograph the process and actually post about it is something I need to work on, lol.)
If you subscribe and would rather not get the new content, let me know and I will figure out how to organize my mailing list so that everyone gets the content they want. 🙂
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