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Ages 2+
Mother’s Day Lavender Bath Salts
A homemade bath salts recipe with lavendar essential oil
Homemade lavender bath salts are a thoughtful and very pretty gift for Mums or for other special friends and family.
They are also excellent for relaxation, stress relief and aching muscles!
Things you will need
- 2 cups Epsom Salt
- 1 cup coarse sea salt
- ½ cup dried lavender buds and leaves (optional)
- 20 -25 drops of lavender essential oil
- 1tbsp olive oil or vegetable oil
- A few drops of purple or any other food colouring or soap colourant (optional)
- A container with a lid.
How to Do It
- Add Epsom salt, coarse sea salt, lavender leaves or buds in mixing bowl
- Add lavender oil and olive or vegetable oil
- Stir gently until well combined
- Add food colour or soap colourant to tint the bath salt if using
- Spoon carefully into a jar and secure the lid
- Decorate your jar and offer it to a loved one!
2 Ways to Use Homemade Lavender Bath
- Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of salt per bath under running water and stir with your hands so the salt dissolves. A water temperature of 36°C to 38°C (96°F to 100°F) is ideal. Adults enjoying these salts should run a bath at a temperature that suits them. Bathe and relax
- You can also use this bath salt as a body scrub to exfoliate your skin
- Simply dampen your skin, apply the salt crystals in a circular motion and then wash off.
Tips
- To get the best result, allow the bath salt to rest for a few days in an airtight container so that essential oil can infuse the salt crystals
- You could use different essential oils, but please first research their benefits and any additional safety considerations, particularly around children.
What Learning is Occurring or Being Promoted?
- DIY Bath Salt is an amazing learning activity for children. It inspires children’s curiosity, thinking, and problem solving, offering new opportunities to make predictions and observations through mixing all materials together.
- This is also a sensory experience and is a way for children to naturally stimulate their growing minds. How many of us as adults associate particular scents to childhood, to cuddles and warm baths? Experiences like these are ones children will recall as memories in later life.
Age Considerations
- For younger children please careful, they don’t eat the salt or rub their eyes with essential oil on their hands
- For older children, consider the measurement opportunities to support numeracy learning. Children love adding, measuring and mixing all things together
- For children transitioning to school they might like to create a tag to go with the gift. They might write ‘Mum’ or another loved one’s name and draw a portrait of them too!
From Parveen Dhull, Diploma and Lead Educator at Guardian Marsfield