While homemade bath salts are so easy to make for ourselves and others (even a little six-year-old kid could make them for you), they are that much easier to overlook when combining specific ingredients together in specific types of containers.
Most of the time, there is no problem with mixing dead sea and epsom salts together with the usual elements. You would simply combine them with your favorite essential oils and food colorings until you were finally able to reach a nice level of color intensity and amount of scent.
While there are tons and tons of bath salt recipes all over the internet that list about the same ingredients (the epsom salts, the aromatherapy oils, the glycerin), there is one thing that many of these recipes list that need to be considered with precaution. This definitely applies to you folks out there that live in humid climates.
Usually, when I am putting together my favorite jar of lavender bath salts for the end of the week, I tend to whip them up in a matter of ten "New York" minutes and place them in a small-sized glass jar.
Fortunately for me, I don't live on the coast of South East Asia or Central America (or is it UNfortunately? In times of looniness in the suburbs I tend to think the latter) and I don't have to worry about the humidity. I can store my bath salts in any glass jar and not worry about this one ingredient expanding air inside the tight space and risking shattering the glass in the midst of all my homemade bath salts.
The ingredient I am speaking of is something many of you know (and possibly love). It is called "baking soda". Yes! The baking soda that you use to absorb odorific scents in the refrigerator, the baking soda that you use to bake goodies that fluff up with utmost glee, and the same baking soda that you use to clean veggies and fruits in your kitchen.
There is a reason why this ingredient is used in baking recipes. It gives rise by way of the carbon dioxide it releases in the dough. But, it is that same emitting of carbon dioxide that can occur in the homemade bath salts, and if there is no room in the glass jar there will be a dangerous potential of the glass cracking and bursting with salt shrapnel!
Now, I don't mean to say this to scare any of you, especially those of you with a strong affinity for making your favorite bath salts with your kids. It is just a guiding measure that I feel utterly responsible to take, such that you and your loved ones are educated on the safety bit of it all.
But, why is baking soda included in many of these homemade bath salt recipes? I have one word for you: fizziness. If that is indeed a real word. If not, I am claiming it now before Merriam-Webster does!
Baking soda adds a nice fizzy effect to the salts as they are used in the nice hot bath. And, to me, fizzy equates to tingly.
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