Grapefruit And Sage BATHSALT

I’ve been meaning to do one since forever and I got the opportunity over Christmas when I decided to make a personalized gift for a fellow busy mommy and friend. It’s very easy, quick and again inexpensive.

The bottle I used is a small soda water bottle that I bought in the supermarket. All you need to do is to take off the label by soak it in water and cut of the little plastic ring which left after you removed the cap.

If the label is nasty to remove a little baking soda and water mix on a sponge works perfect to scrap of the glue and paper bits.

There are millions of ways to make bath salt based on Epson salt. I happened to have a big bucket of Epson salt at home which I bought at the early stage of pregnancy when I could still fit in the bath. :)

What you do is technically jazz up the salt. Add essential oils, herbs, rose petals or even beach sand. Mix well, leave it for like a day or two and presto!, you have this gorgeous scent homemade! It is so impressive when the scent comes together… you will be surprised.

This was the easy part. However if you want it to be special you need to take it a step further and consider your presentation of the salt. I had been waiting to find the right glass jar or bottle. A fancy jam jar will work too or if you want you can invest and buy a nice jar or bottle.

Then comes the difficult, but fun part: designing your label.

I love writing on glass bottles and jars, but you could also do a nice label and then stick it on. Either way all you need is a little bit of time and effort. If you don’t have fabulous handwriting but you are half decent copying stuff, then do that and look for inspiration on the net.

 So here is what you do:

1)      Pour enough Epson salt to fill your bottle or jar into a cereal bowl.

2)      Get your scent together. For this bottle I used about 25 drops of grapefruit essential oil and 7-10 leaves of dried sage leaves. Mix in the bowl and cover. I had a very simple reason to pair grapefruit and sage: they were right next to each other on my kitchen window sill. I sniffed them and they smelled nice together. Simple as that.

3)      While your salt is absorbing the scent design your bottle or jar with permanent black marker

If you don’t get it right at first you can wipe of the permanent marker with a dash of alcohol on a rag. (I literally used a dash of my husband’s whiskey on a kitchen cloth…Shhh!)

Sourcing:

Epsom salt: Order a 4kg bucket in your local pharmacy if they don’t have it in stock. I payed 12.99€ for the lot.

Glass bottle or jar: Any jam jar, honey jar, pickle jar will do or if you want to buy go to IKEA or any home ware store. You can also get lucky in TK Maxx.

Permanent marker: Any stationary shop. Buy maybe 2 or 3 different thickness ones to try them.

Essential Oils: Widely available in health shops throughout the country. 5-10€ per oil and it will last for a good while.

Dried herbs: Take any fresh herb, pluck off the leaves and leave to dry on your window sill.

I finished mine off with a bit of butcher string and a cork. I’m all into simple design, however in this case a super detailed and flowery label with thick velvet ribbon would have worked also.

Cost: It’s almost nothing. Seriously! From the big bucket I could get at least 10 of these little bottles out, so that makes my bottle load of Epson salt cost less than 1.50€.