In fair weather, I spend every weekend possible in my garden in the vain hope of catching up. That frequently means the old back and feet are complaining by Sunday evening.
As I’ve been toying with making my own home cleansers and body care products, I happened upon a delightful and accessible collection of recipes from Jan Berry’s fantastic book, The Big Book of Homemade Products for your Skin, Health & Home.
I have already tried out her Fresh Breath Dog Treats and the Honey, Rose, and Oat Face Scrub. Neither I nor the canines were disappointed. The book is delightful, and one I know I’ll use time and time again. The author also pens articles and recipes on her site, The Nerdy Farm Wife.
Sore Muscle Bath Bags
Tonight, I’m putting together the Sore Muscle Bath Bags recipe from her Garden-Fresh Bath Bombs, Soaks & Salts chapter. You just mix the following together and divide by 3, then spoon into muslin tea bags.
The recipe calls for:
- 3/4 cup of Epsom salt – Check!
- 2 Tablespoons dried mint leaves – Got mint.
- 1/4 cup dried pine needles – Got pine.
- 15 drops Lavender essential oil – Check!
- 10 drops Eucalyptus essential oil – Check!
- 3-4 reusable muslin tea bags – Check!
I recently took down a small, straggly pine that was coming up in the Mail Box Garden. Fortunately, I did a poor job. Now I have a lovely little pine “bush” struggling to make a comeback. Perhaps divine intervention was at work (or maybe I was just lazy – you decide), but I have hopes I can keep it small to harvest from. There’s always plenty of mint in the back yard gardens. I’ve harvested both pine needles and mint leaves. I laid them on the counter on white cloth and newspaper to give the fauna, which unwittingly rode along on the bundle, a chance to make a hasty retreat. I returned a spider to the garden and shook some small stragglers off of the papers and cloth back into the garden. It seems only fair.
Next, I plunged the pine boughs and mint branches into a salt bath for a few minutes, then rinsed them. This process helps remove any dirt and the remaining critters still hanging on. I then hung the bundles by their stems in a closet to dry and to keep the sun and animal hairs away. The mint dried in a couple of days but the pine needles took a full week to get good and crispy.
The mint and pine needles were crumbled into small pieces and mixed with the Epsom salt. To this dry mixture, I added the Eucalyptus and Lavender.
I divided the well-mixed concoction into three muslin bags, and I tested one out right away. You just drop it in the tub while the water is running and slide in with a glass of wine and a good book. Savor the steam, enjoy the aroma, and have a long soak. What a lovely end to a day of work in the dirt. I better scoot on out to the yard and pick some more pine needles ASAP! I can see I’m going to be making this recipe regularly. Thanks, Jan!