Eucalyptus Shower Bombs
Amazon sells the same thing at $12 plus shipping for a package of 5 tablets.
If you have a fork and a muffin tin (or even a cookie sheet), you have all of the tools you need to make your own shower bombs. You aren’t limited to making these to treat congestion, either. With a different set of essential oils, you can make any fragrance you want to turn your shower into a posh spa experience.
About essential oils
I have a love-hate relationship with essential oils. I’ve always used them to scent my homemade products because it seems ridiculous to go to all the work of making a lovely non-toxic product and then add a petroleum or chemical fragrance to it. The hate part comes in with all of these multi-level marketing companies that endorse some pretty terrifying and unsafe medicinal uses for essential oils. For example, they should never be applied undiluted directly on your skin and it’s very questionable to ingest them. Please use great care and be certain the person you are taking advice from has actually had some training other than a three-day weekend convention geared to teach people how to sell oils.
Because we’re breaking free from shopping at the stores, I decided it was time to take the plunge and find an essential oil company that I have faith in. I’m very happy with Spark Naturals. The quality is high, there’s no big push for me to get others to sell them, and the website contains no outrageous claims or unsafe advice. These are the oils I recommend to you as well. (Use the coupon code DAISY for your orders and get 10% off, every single time.)
To make your own cold-relief shower bombs, you need the following:
- 1 cup of baking soda
- 2 tbsp of salt
- Essential oils of choice ( I used a combination of eucalyptusandpeppermint)
- 1/3 cup of lemon juice
- Water as needed
- Muffin tin ( a mini muffin tin would make the best looking end product)
How to Make a Shower Bomb
1.) Using a glass mixing bowl, stir baking soda and salt with a fork.
2.) Add the lemon juice a little at a time. It will get fizzy when the acid reacts with the baking soda.
3.) Stir again with the fork.
4.) Add water a few tablespoons-full at a time until you have a consistency that looks like biscuit dough – moist and crumbly, like in the photo below. It has to be moist enough that it will stick together.
5.) Lightly oil your muffin tin or cookie sheet so your dough doesn’t stick. I use a less expensive vegetable oil for this, but you could use coconut or almond oil if you want to.
6.) Roll the dough (I use about a tablespoon at a time) in your hands, then add the ball of dough to your muffin tin or cookie sheet.
6.) If you want, you can go all Martha Stewart and try to make them look perfect, pressing them down into the cups of the muffin tin or using a cookie cutter. I am not Martha Stewart and prefer to say that mine look “homespun.” That’s code for I-didn’t-press-them-down-neatly-or-use-a-cookie-cutter.
7.)Bake them for 10-20 minutes at 350 degrees. When they come out, they’ll look sort of like cookies, which prompted my daughter to rename them “shower cookies.” Cookies are better than bombs, right?
8.) Gently remove them from the muffin tin with a spoon and place them on a plate to cool.
9.) While they’re cooling, add 3 drops of Eucalyptus oil and 1 drop of Peppermint oil to each shower bomb.
10.) Leave them out overnight to cool and harden.
Place the dried shower bombs in a canning jar. The longer they sit in the jar, the stronger and more soothing they’ll become.
If they are crumbly, don’t worry – they’ll still work just fine. Try adding a bit more liquid the next time you make them. In fact, if they crumble too much, use a fork to turn them into a powder and scoop out about 2 tbsp. into a little dish to place in your steamy shower.
How to Use a Eucalyptus Shower Bomb
To use a shower bomb, simply toss it onto the floor of your nice hot shower. The steam will create a fragrant vapor that will clear your sinuses and provide some natural relief for congestions. If you’d prefer a bath, you can add this to your bathwater instead – it’s just baking soda, salt, and oils, after all.