DIY Rose Bath Salts

Unwind after a long day with these DIY rose bath salts—the perfect remedy for soothing tense muscles and indulging in a moment of self-care.

Homemade, with carefully selected natural ingredients, this luxurious blend not only transforms your warm bath into a fragrant oasis but also makes a thoughtful, perfect gift for someone special.

Whether you're pampering yourself or surprising a loved one, these homemade rose bath salts are a simple yet elegant way to relax and rejuvenate after a stressful day.

Contents

• Benefits
• Ingredients
• Instructions
• Storage
• Top Tip
• Warnings and Safety
• 📖 Recipe

In this post, I’ll show you how to make your own at home with just a few easy steps. We’ll also dive into the different ingredients and their benefits that will enhance your overall well-being.

Benefits

• insanely easy to make at home
• all-natural ingredients
• offers pain relief for aching joints and sore muscles
• moisturises dry skin
• improves skin health (psoriasis or eczema)
• stress-relief
• may help with hormonal imbalances
• beneficial for the menstrual cycle and PMS (cramps)
• improves the quality of sleep

Salt baths are well-known for their healing, relaxing and soothing properties. A good, long soak with these homemade bath salts relieves joint pain, eases muscle tension, soothes a busy mind and recharges your batteries.

The magnesium content of the Epsom salts (or magnesium flakes) enhances the effect of soothing muscle pain. I’ve got a recipe here on my blog for an Epsom salt bath, too, if you like to check it out.

Benefits of Roses

The natural aroma of roses promotes relaxation and helps reduce stress and anxiety. Rose-scented baths are often associated with calming a stressed mind and encouraging a sense of inner balance.

Rose petals and rose-infused ingredients contain natural oils that help moisturise and soften dry skin. They may also help soothe skin irritation and reduce redness (great for sensitive skin).

In aromatherapy, the gentle fragrance of roses has a cooling and soothing influence on our bodies. It may also uplift our mood, reduce feelings of depression, and enhance emotional well-being.

The rose is the Queen of Flowers which brings joy to the heart. It is therefore useful in treating insomnia and irritability (especially deriving from hormonal imbalances).

Roses have an astonishing effect on the female sexual organs as a regulating agent. It is known to regulate the natural flow of menstruation, relieving menstrual cramps and excessive menstrual bleeding ^[1].

Note: Rose essential oil is the most powerful agent, as opposed to dried or fresh roses!

Ingredients

• coarse sea salt and/or pink Himalayan salt
• Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate)
• organic dried rose petals or rose buds
• rose essential oil (has to be used with a carrier oil!), optional

Optional Ingredients

• Dead Sea salt
• baking soda
• dried petals of other flowers (such as jasmine flowers)
• dried herbs (rosemary, sage, etc.)
• carrier oil (such as sweet almond oil)
• therapeutic-grade essential oils (such as lavender oil)

(see recipe card for quantities)

This rose bath salts recipe is crafted with simple ingredients that are either readily available in your grocery or wholefoods shop, or you can easily get them online.

There are no limits to what you can add to your rose petal bath salt, but I recommend keeping it simple. I’ll go through the different ingredients in a bit so you can learn more about them and evaluate whether you’d like to add them or not.

Salts

It doesn’t matter what kind of salt you end up using. This is really up to you and your preference. However, it’s important to either use sea salt or rock salt that doesn’t have any additives (such as iodine).

As we are creating a rose bath soak, I kinda like the idea of using Himalayan pink salt because it looks nicer! Especially, if you want to make these DIY rose bath salts for your mum, for Mother’s Day!

Regular sea salt is great, but if you like to upgrade your rose petal bath soak experience, you could upgrade to Dead Sea salt. Its healing properties and various medical uses are well-known.

Epsom salts are a wonderful addition to the other salts if your focus is on muscle relaxation, stress relief and quality of sleep. They’re high in magnesium which is known to help with that.

Roses

Okay, let’s get into the broad range of choices. I’d like to point them all out so you can choose whichever works best for you.

So, what can we use for our DIY rose bath salts? There are dried rose petals or dried rose buds, fresh rose petals, rose water and rose essential oil (pure or already diluted).

Quality reeaaaaally matters here!! So, please, make sure to use organic products! You do not wish to soak in a bath full of chemicals and pesticides, right???

Rose Petals

Personally, I prefer dried rose petals. They are easier to store! I don’t like to mix oils into my bath salts—I usually keep them in a separate container or add them when I run my hot bath.

Especially, if you’re thinking of making this bath salt recipe for a gift, it’d be best to use plain dry rose petals and salt. Less messy and you don’t have to worry about an expiry date (see ‘storage’ for more information).

Using fresh rose petals has the benefit of the luxurious feel of your bath experience. When the petals float around you, it truly adds to the self-pampering effect.

Fresh flowers do expire, obviously, so you should add them on the day you’re planning on indulging in this luxury. You can mix the salts ahead and sprinkle the flower petals over your bath water later.

The same applies to rose water. This is best poured into the bath water as you run it. Don’t mix it with the salts. Please note, only use high-quality rose water (aka rose hydrosol). There are plenty of cheap ones out there which offer zero therapeutic benefits!

Rose Oil

And lastly, you’ve got the option of using rose oil. There is rose essential oil which is the pure essence (and expensive!!!), and then there’s rose oil which is the already diluted option.

Rose essential oil is so powerful, that you really need no more than one drop of it for your whole bath! It is absolutely essential to add a carrier oil when using it to avoid skin irritation and allergic reactions.

I recommend mixing your carrier oil and rose essential oil (or skip the step and buy diluted rose oil) and keep it in a small jar or bottle—ideally, made of amber or tinted glass.

Essential oils are sensitive to light and lose their potency over time when exposed to it, which is why I prefer to keep the salts separate from the oils and store them in a dark place!

If you make these rose bath salts as a gift, you could put the salt mixture (and dried rose petals for a more beautiful look) in a mason jar and the oils in a small amber glass bottle.

Optional Ingredients

Other Beautiful Flowers

Some of the best other flowers to use for these DIY rose bath salts are lavender buds, calendula, chamomile and/or jasmine flowers.

Flowers mostly have a calming effect on our nervous system. But they also have healing properties or are antimicrobial (especially lavender). Plus, they do look pretty in the jar and smell amazing!

Dried Herbs

Rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano, eucalyptus, lemon balm and holy basil (tulsi) are great herbs for a bath soak. They stimulate blood flow and invigorate a tired body, have antibacterial properties, and have a soothing effect.

I know it may sound confusing when I say they invigorate but simultaneously, they’re are calming. But that’s the magic of natural therapy. Plant extracts have intelligence and will help with whatever it is your body needs right now.

By the way, I have a herbal bath salt recipe here on my blog as well with some herb combinations and inspirations!

Baking Soda

Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) may help relieve skin irritations, itching, or infections (don’t use on open wounds). It’s also a great detoxifying ingredient to add to your homemade bath salts.

Carrier Oils

Note: Adding oils to your salts will change the shelf life and, if you add essential oils, you have to keep them out of the light, in a cupboard and a tinted jar.

I prefer to add oil to the water directly rather than having it included in my salts. Oil has the benefit of deeply moisturising the skin while you take your bath.

If you want to add a carrier oil to your rose bath soak, I would recommend sweet almond oil or olive oil. Coconut oil is generally great, too, but it’s solid in cold temperatures and it may be harder for you to get the salts out of the jar.

Essential Oils

A few important things to note! If you use essential oils, you always dilute them with a carrier oil. Floating amongst litres of warm water, they do get diluted, too, but an oil is always best, in my opinion.

You can use a multitude of essential oils, too many to list here, but basically, the dried herb and flower variety I suggest for this recipe is a good place to start (my favourite is lavender oil!).

Instructions

How to make these Rose Bath Salts?

Optionally, add the appropriate amount (see recipe card) of drops of rose essential oil to your choice of carrier oil and mix. Then, add the oils to the salts.

Step 2. Transfer the bath salt mixture into a mason jar or an airtight container for storage.

How to use these Rose Bath Salts?

Add 1 cup of your DIY rose bath salts to hot to warm water and use your arm to mix them in, making sure the salts dissolve completely (this may take a minute or two).

Have a good soak for at least 20 minutes and up to 40 minutes, or for as long as you like and the water is warm. Pamper yourself!

Storage

You can store these DIY rose bath salts in a glass jar, an airtight container, glass container, or in mason jars, out of direct sunlight in a dry place. For example in your cupboard.

If you only use the dry ingredients, the shelf life is fairly long—salt doesn’t really go off. However, the dried rose petals will lose their potency over time. Use them up within 8 months for best results.

If you use oils, especially essential oils, store them in an amber glass jar to additionally protect them from the daylight. Please note that the shelf life will depend on the carrier oils you’re using. Check their expiry date to make sure they’ll last you for a few months!

Top Tip

This rose bath salt recipe can easily be doubled, tripled, and so on. It’s a great gift idea for Mother’s Day, Christmas or Valentine’s Day! Simply decorate the mason jar with a lace ribbon and a twig of your favourite herb or flower, and add your tag!

Also, these homemade bath salts are great for a foot soak. Simply add hot water to a small tub, large enough to fit your feet and add ¼ cup to the water. Soak your feet for 15-20 minutes.

Warnings and Safety

Don’t have a bath, when you have an open wound or cut. Check with your doctor first. Small, minor cuts may be fine but will probably sting due to the salt (just so you’re aware).

If using essential oils, please do your research for the contraindications first before adding them. Some can be irritant or toxic, too. It’s always wise to do a patch test prior to using these oils in your DIY products.

📖 Recipe

Resources

• [1] Battaglia, Salvatore. The Complete Guide to Aromatherapy, Second Edition
• https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/epsom-salt-bath
• https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321398
• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10758878/