Photo Credit: Dennis Wong
This week, we’re talking about detox baths. Lovely, healing, make-you-feel-human-again detox baths. As a holistic practitioner, I highly recommend them as a gentle method of pulling toxins out of the skin when the detoxification system is compromised.
Don’t forget to read the first post on Baby Step # 2 |Detox Baths| if you missed it.
There are a wide variety of healing agents like herbs, salts, essential oils, and even foods that can be added to a bath to make it another healing tool in your toolbox. Let’s focus on some that provide a gentle detox, are allergen-free, and use ingredients that can do double duty in other areas of your home.
Method
Tub
- Drink 12-16 ounces of water during the hour before to be sure you’re hydrated.
- Fill the tub with very warm water (no more than body temperature for children). ‘Very warm’ should be comfortable. The water should be at a temperature that makes you say Ahhhh when you sink down into it.
- Add your healing agents to the water while it is filling or just before you get in.
- Empty your bladder before you get in. You just drank a bunch of water, and you’re not allowed to pee in the tub. It messes up the whole detox thing.
- Now sink down in the water as far as is comfortable, release a sign of contentment, and relax.
- Soak for 20 minutes. Take some deep, slow breaths to increase oxygen flow and relax more deeply. Don’t fall asleep. Drowning is less than relaxing.
- Rinse your skin well when finished and voila! You should feel refreshed and pretty darn perky or ready for a much needed healing nap depending on what your bath was geared toward.
- Drink another 8-16 ounces of water within 30 minutes to rehydrate and help flush out residual toxins.
Foot Bath
Follow the above instructions, but use 1/4 of the ingredients called for in the following recipes.
Shower
If you do not use any toxic personal care products in the shower, you can close the drain and let your feet soak in the water while you shower. Every little bit helps!
Notes
You may sweat profusely during the bath. That’s a good sign your body is getting rid of the bad stuff. As long as you do not feel flushed and too overheated, enjoy.
If you do feel the need to cool down, sit up and run cool water over your arms while you bring the temperature of the bath water down. I detest being hot, so I occasionally prop my feet on the edge of the tub to cool myself down.
Baths can be taken up to 3 times a day for detox relief and can be taken every day, or as often as possible, during acute healing. Just like you chuck all the unsupportive food out of the house when you want to get healthy, your body goes through a similar process when you clean up your lifestyle.
Start small. If you are new to detox baths, I suggest starting with plain water or no more than 1/4 cup of any bath addition until you know how you respond to it.
For those with serious health conditions and those who are pregnant, drop the temperature to a more comfortable level and consult your health professional about what is appropriate for your particular sensitivity.
Filtered Water
Filtered water is really important when you’re trying to remove the toxins from your body. The pharmaceuticals and dangerous synthetic chemicals found in tap water are extremely harmful to our health and should be filtered out as much as possible. We use a 2-stage shower filter and use the detachable head to fill the tub (where to buy)
.
That said, I do believe a detox bath in unfiltered water is still beneficial unless you are using abnormally toxic water. I know many people cannot afford another strain on their budget, so a shower/bath filter can be put on your “to-do-later” list.
Learn how to use Vitamin C to remove the chlorine from your water here.
Detox Bath Recipes
Many of the ingredients listed below contain affiliate links to help you easily find the products online and all are products I use myself. You can read my full advertising disclosure here.
Whine Buster – buh-bye cranky kiddos!
- 1/4 cup Epsom salt or magnesium chloride (magnesium chloride is a form of magnesium more easily retained by the body)
- 1-3 drops lavender essential oil* to add to the calming qualities of magnesium (oils I use); for very small children, diffuse a couple drops in a bowl of warm water and place near tub instead of in the water
- a full belly and a bath are my secret weapons against whininess
Relaxation For the Rest of Us
- up to 2 cups of Epsom salt or magnesium chloride
- 3-5 drops of a soothing essential oil* (oils I use) such as lavender, chamomile, orange, frankincense, or even patchouli stirred or shaken into the magnesium before adding to the water to emulsify.
Here’s a great bath blend that keeps me from selling my small humans to the zoo: Revitalizing Essential Oils Soak for Moms (and the rest of us)
Itch Be Gone – good for skin conditions such as yeast infections, rashes, sunburns (cool water bath only), and body acne
A Little Pick-Me-Up
- 1/2 cup organic apple cider vinegar
- 3-5 drops of non-phototoxic citrus essential oils* to uplift your mood (oils I use). Distilled lemon or lime, furocoumarin-free bergamot, and/or orange are great choices.
Sensitive Skin Soak
- water, preferably filtered
Secondary Allergic Reactions
Beat the Blahs
- This will be your personal preference. Experiment with the different ‘ingredients’ listed and write down which ones make you feel the best. Any time you feel less than ideal, grab the list and soak your way to happy thoughts.
- My go-to bath is 1 cup apple cider vinegar and 1/2 cup clay.
The Ultimate
Add up to 2 cups from any combination of the following:
- food-grade clay such as Bentonite clay
- organic apple cider or kombucha vinegar
- unrefined salt
- Epsom salt
- baking soda
- ginger or ginger tea
- 3-5 drops of uplifting essential oil* (oils I use)
*Be sure to check cautions for any essential oils before using them.
This is not a comprehensive list. Please share in the comments what your favorite detox baths are to help out our readers who are new to it!
DETOXIFICATION
IMMUNE SUPPORT
IMMUNE SUPPORT
THYROID SUPPORT
ADRENAL SUPPORT
HEALING RESPONSES
104 Responses
My mom and I were just talking about how ACV can cure anything and joked “can we just bathe in it” and here you are saying yes, you can!
Love me some epsom salts and I am feeling exceptionally cranky at the moment. I think I might just go do this…
Missy, it really can cure just about anything, can’t it?! Apple cider vinegar (ACV) and raw shea butter are my Windex (My Big Fat Greek Wedding). 😀
It is also AWESOME for sunburn! I had a burn so bad I had 3 inch blisters on most of my body. I was eight. Clearly, it was horrific enough for me to remember. The ONLY thing that provided relief was ACV in a lukewarm bath that my great aunt suggested.
that was 21 years ago!
I’m lovin’ the recipe for rashes. I’ll be doing this later for my infant who just broke out in a new mystery rash. Plus I once blogged about epsom salts. We use it to cure restless leg syndrome and our preschoolers night waking episodes. http://rojerthat.com/2011/08/25/our-cure-for-restless-leg-syndrome/
Megan, it’s amazing how many problems crop up from a magnesium deficiency. We cured the same problems mainly by increasing our dietary intake with bone broths and other magnesium-rich foods. You may want to look into magnesium chloride (used in magnesium oil). It is a form more easily absorbed by our bodies and doesn’t get flushed out within 24 hours like the form in Epsom salt. The magnesium chloride makes my daughter’s skin itchy, so we stick with Epsom salt for her baths. I do notice a difference with the magnesium chloride flakes in mine though.
I love all your varied recipes for different baths. I can tend to get in a detox bath rut. : )
Thanks for sharing this with Fill Those Jars Friday. Hope to see you again later this week!
Mindy, I get in one too. We tend to stick with our favorites, so I have to make sure to shake it up on occasion.
I used baking soda and kosher salt last night – it was all I had in the house…and I got my sweat on. There are great suggestion – looking up bentonite clay now…
Blessings
http://bit.ly/xabvOm
I am using a bentonite clay deodorant to help detox without having to drink. The clay took away my husbands numb hand
That’s fantastic Wendy!
Do you have a headache combo? My husband and now my 8 year old daughter have been complaining about headaches a lot lately. We have been doing some essential oils and herbs with my daughter to help her. She loves taking baths and would eat something like this up.
Isn’t is great when our kiddos actually like something that’s good for them?! Depending on the cause of the headaches, all of the baths should give some relief. You may want to look into acupressure or acupuncture and definitely chiropractic care if you don’t already do so. A visit to the chiropractor, followed by a couple glasses of water, and an apple cider vinegar bath can cure my family of almost anything. You can also use rub the essential oils that they prefer into your hands with a carrier oil (I use organic, cold-pressed olive oil) and let them inhale the scent 2-3 times, then rub a little around their hairlines to continue the effect.
I hope that helps!
They probably have headaches from allergies. It’s been a particularly rough season.
PianoChick
Make sure you don’t have carbon monoxide going on in your house, you might need to get a carbon monoxide alarm. Two people in the same house with headaches makes me think of this. Just saying. We have to be careful about things like this.
Try having her eyes examined. When I developed frequent headaches it was because I needed glasses
MSG used in cooking could definitely cause headaches. Hope you’re not using Accent.
For the whiny kids bath – could I use something other than lavender – my children has asthma and sometimes it bothers them.
Shaylene,
With asthma, you may want to steer clear of the herbs and just stick with a rotation of a straight warm water bath, Epsom salt, and unrefined sea salt to see how that works out. A mini massage with cocoa, shea, olive, or coconut oil would be a great way to help them relax even further.
haha I love the whine buster!
Most mothers seem to also. 😉
You can also add hydrogen peroxide and baking soda to detox baths. Both are very beneficial.
It was said that you should never ingest essential oils and that may be true will newborns who are only nursing or if you choose a low quality brand of oil, but therapeutic grade oils like Young Living are completely safe to use directly on skin, diluted with a carrier oil, inhaled, or even ingested. In fact some work best when ingested.
Totally love these recipes though!
Thanks for the info Autumn. It really helps when readers add their 2 cents. There’s only so much that will fit in one post, and a wealth of knowledge that we can all share with each other!
I will have a sequel post up soon for more recipes and will definitely include peroxide, baking soda, and more essential oils in the mix.
Thanks for mentioning younglivings medicinal grade essential oils I’m new to using them and I LOVE the effects they have and that they are completely safe for most people. When she said they should NEVER be ingested I quickly thought ohh no they can if they are good. 🙂
Hold on just a minute! 10-15 drops of peppermint essential oil will BURN your skin.
I don’t know if spearmint has the same effect, but under no circumstances should an adult put more than 2 drops of peppermint oil into the bath (and none for children).
I am speaking from experience with food-grade, pure essential oils. Be VERY careful with mint oils.
Thank you for the information Christie. I appreciate you weighing in on this.
My recommendations are based on my personal experience and the product usage instructions. The recommended dilution is 1-3 drops per ounce of carrier oil, but I will contact a company who produces pure, food-grade EOs to verify the amount recommended in each of my recipes. I will update the post with the green light or modified information as soon as I hear back!
I was really looking forward to a “Detox Bath”, but unfortunately I did get the sweating, or funny feelings. Nothing at all but a horrible smell threw out my home, and self ugh “apple cider vinger is gross” sorry but it is. Maybe I did something wrong someone please explain. I used 2 cups apple cider vinegar, and 2 cups epsom salt. I was going to use a oil but the bottles of oil I have say no contact w/ skin or eyes. So I wasnt sure. Thanks
You poor thing! I’m glad you came back and said something. Let’s make this work for you!!
It sounds like you were try to make “The Ultimate” recipe. I’m sorry if the instructions weren’t clear enough. The ingredients are any combination of what’s listed UP TO 2 cups, so 1 cup of Epsom salt and 1 cup of apple cider vinegar is a possibility. If you don’t like the smell of the vinegar, feel free to skip it and try another ingredient or use 1 1/2 cups of Epsom salt and 1/4-1/2 cup of vinegar. The smell will be much more subtle.
Your best bet will be to play with the ingredients and find out what you prefer. Make sure it’s relaxing and enjoyable so you can get the full benefits. Increasing the temperature a bit and making sure your body is submerged as much as possible will help too.
High-quality essential oils like orange, peppermint, lavender, and similar scents that we would normally use on our skin should all be safe. It was a good idea to read the directions on yours and skip it! If you would like to use oils, find a store that carries ‘food-grade’ essential oils so you know they’re safe.
Good luck Crystal! I hope the next bath works well for you.
My daughter has eczema and asthma, we see a homeopathic doc and am now excited to try some of these baths!
Thank you for making a site like this! I am excited to see and share more natural ways of healing.
Even my kids try to explain it to their friends and teachers.
They are our #1 method for cleansing our detox systems after food. I hope they work as well for you!
I love bath infusions, thanks for sharing such great recipes for the body.
…Stay Beautiful and Healthy,
I just wanted to say not only do I LOVE the ideas for the different baths, (New detox bath junkie lol.) but also I am INCREDIBALLY impressed with how you handle the negative posts and respond in a helpfull not definsive manner. 🙂
Well thank you Amber! How kind of you to say so.
I was thinking the exact same thing! Is there a chapter on this in your NTP training? I’m in customer service and am always looking for better (less stressful ways) to deal with the negative.
We actually have an entire module dedicated to the client/practitioner relationship. I have learned so much from it, and it has made me a much better blogger, practitioner, and person overall with the shift in thinking.
Thank you so much for this post! I can’t wait to try out some of these detox baths! I have included this in my weekly roundup of useful sites at http://www.doomestic.com Thank you so much!!
Thanks Tiffany! I can’t wait for you to try them either. They are my favorite part of Saturday mornings. 🙂
I am excited to prepare a bath for my wife. We swear by putting lavinder on our kids feet at night time but never in bath form. The ACV is a great idea to! Thanks!!!
You have one lucky wife Geoff!
All of the mixtures for detox baths include epsom salts which I’m sure do work great for most people. I am, however, allergic to most all sulfa/sulfates and get severe skin irritation up to dangerous reactions which I’m exposed to them which means epsom salt is a very bad idea for me to bath in. Does anyone have suggestions for alternatives to incldue in a detox bath with similiar benefits? Also, unless its something you can get at Kroger or such I’d appreciate any pointers on where to get what you suggest too. Thanks for anyone who can help, and great article!
Only 3 of the 10 recipes mention Epsom salt (Magnesium sulfate) and give Magnesium Chloride as an alternate. Take another read over the recipes and feel free to substitute Magnesium Chloride or use one of the recipes that omits magnesium altogether. I mention that my preferred bath uses apple cider vinegar and clay. You can also pick and choose your ingredients and make your own!
Where do you buy your food grade bentonite clay? It is insanely expensive locally and that’s for quite small containers. I’ve searched around online and I’m never convinced enough of the quality to complete the purchase.
Swanson Vitamins (online) carries Redmond Clay for a great price, and it’s a wonderful product.
Hi. I just came across this post and I am wondering if anyone has any thoughts about chlorine and chloramines in our city treated water? I used to love taking baths, but after reading how easily we can absorb it through the skin, I switched to quick showers. We drink filtered water, but don’t bathe with it.
If you can’t purchase a filter like suggested in the post, there are other precautions you can take. Chlorine is a halide and is detoxified by iodine. If your body has the optimal amount of iodine and a healthy gut, then you should be able to excrete any chlorine taken in. I have also heard that bentonite clay absorbs toxins in the water including chlorine and fluoride so that may be worth looking into further.
Here is my post on iodine supplementation for more information: http://www.20somethingallergies.com/iodine-protocol-for-healing-thyroid/
It’s worth noting that you can de-chlorinate your water using Vitamin C/Ascorbic Acid. Here is more information on that here: http://www.fs.fed.us/t-d/pubs/html/05231301/05231301.html
Hi – Thanks for sharing these ideas! Does anyone have any recommendations for very dry skin? Also, I’m curious about the clay and whether it would clog my drain pipes.
I like apple cider vinegar and filtered water baths for very dry skin followed by my DIY healing skin balm: http://www.20somethingallergies.com/diy-healing-skin-balm/. The clay hasn’t been a concern for me, but many people filter their bath water when using clay with a fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth.
G’Day! Jennifer,
I just stumbled across this and, ….at home detox bath additive?
(I posted this in health/beauty section, but w/no response…thought I’d try here….)
My mom went to a spa while on vacation and had a detox bath and said it was great! She couldn’t believe all the stuff it pulls out of your skin…”gross” but amazing!
I’m making up an “at home spa” basket for her birthday and would like to see if it’s at all possible to do an “at home” detox bath.
Any suggestions or advice?
Keep up the posts!
It’s all in the post!
Hi! You mentioned the filter for a shower head…do you know of a good filter for a tub (with just the faucet)?
I haven’t found any heavy-duty ones yet, so we use the shower head to fill up the tub. It takes a little longer but is worth the clean water.
Would you suggest I wash my face and hair before or after the bath??
I take a quick shower after to wash my hair and face.
Thanks for a great post! I recently switched to real foods about 6 months back and I feel awesome, but just over a month ago I developed these allergic reaction to something hive like rashes that come and go on my body all day. I’m going crazy scratching all day in different spots leaving scabs in some spots. So needless to say I’m looking forward to trying the itch relief bath. I’ll be looking up the clay to see where I can get it. Thanks again! Ps I found you through thank your body’s natural cold remedies post.
I’m glad I could help! After 6 months, your immune system should not be so reactive. You may be dealing with food sensitivities that still need to be dealt with. I suggest anyone switching to real food focuses on healing digestion also: http://www.20somethingallergies.com/healing-digestion-restoring-mucous-layer/.
Are all of these detox baths safe for breastfeeding women? Also, are you familiar with zeolite drops (taken internally) as a detox method? Apparently the zeolite binds toxins and excretes them via urine. Just wondering if you have any experience with it and what you think of it in general and particularly for nursing women? It is claimed to be safe, but I’m always extra cautious about breastfeeding (though I’ve been thinking more and more about how my toddler is getting toxins from me via my breastmilk anyway, so maybe it would be better to do some gentle removal of toxins by safe methods, and even give him the zeolite drops perhaps).
I would love to know what all is in that bathtub in the photo! That is gorgeous!
Some great concoctions to try reading through the comments, what about using green tea its good for you inside maybe it’ll also benefit you on the outside too…
Loved this post! I am a relatively newbie to all this good stuff. What is the best source for reasonably priced essential oils…and what should I look for when I buy them? I know you can find them at craft stores but somehow, I don’t think they would be the same grade as I would want to use on my body.
I’m glad your gut tells you to not get them from craft stores! Yikes. You can find links to the essential oils within the post if you need a place to buy them online, otherwise a local health food store should carry at least a couple of brands. There are a few companies out there that I like, but the main thing you want to look for is organic, sustainably harvested, and therapeutic-grade. Therapeutic-grade is not a regulated terms, but I do find that it helps me suss out the more reputable companies.
I just took my first detox bath of 10 drops of NOW brand lavender essential oil, 1/2 cup baking soda, and a handful of Epsom salt. I sweated like a banchee, so I understand how very much I have going on- I should also say that I took a 20 minute bath and have been dx with Chronic Lyme. Again, I know that I should have been detoxing through my antibiotic year and a half, but didn’t ( mostly bc I have 4 children that require my every waking moment:) I have been off all antibiotics for at least 6 months and have been practimg a gluten free, sugar free, grain free diet for the last 2 months so I’m not sure what could’ve caused the skin irritations and rash on only my feet. Any suggestions?
I have used the clay along with the magnesium in a detox bath. The problem I have is how do you strain the water as you release the plug. It made an awful mess and I was afraid I would need to call a plumber if I did this more than once. You mentioned using cheesecloth which I never thought of. How exactly do you do this? Do you enfold the clay in the cloth prior to submerging it in the water? Thank you!
It’s very likely to clog the plumbing if you’re taking regular clay baths and letting it all run down the drain. Good catch! Yes, steeping it like a cup of tea with the cheesecloth and squeezing the makeshift bag as you do it will allow the ‘silt’ to filter through without any large chunks. Alternately, you can put a filter (including cheesecloth) over the drain as the tub empties to catch the large pieces. You can either anchor it down with something heavy or hold it. One foot on either side of it would do too. 🙂