Make and give the gift of bath salts for a relaxing body bath Looking for a great gift for a hard-to-shop-for friend, or a nice treat for yourself?  Why not give the gift of relaxation?  It is easy to make bath salts with simple ingredients and inexpensive you can get in many stores.  Then your friend can enjoy a relaxing, and extra special, body bath. Bath salts are inorganic solid products you add to your bath to improve cleaning, medical benefit, a better bathing experience, or a vehicle for agents.  The earliest record of bath salts date back to China around 2700 BC.  Hippocrates (the father of medicine) encouraged his fellow doctors to make use of salt water to heal patients. What do you need to make your own bath salts?  It’s easy.  The ingredients are simple: - Baking soda - Bath salts such as Epsom or Dead Sea salts - Essential oils – great for adding a nice fragrance - Coloring, if desired – you can use liquid soap-safe colorant - Glycerin for additional moisturizing Simple mix the ingredients, air them to dry, and store them in a glass jar.  Another easy way is to use distilled water, unscented shampoo, glycerin, and essential oils. Mix the dry ingredients together and then add the water. To hold the fragrance better and allow the salt to flow better, consider adding dendritic salt.  Dendritic salt is very fine grain salt.  It has been crystallized to provide greater surface area, which helps maintain the fragrance.  Add about 5% dendritic salt. A more complex method for creating bath salts uses sunflower oil, essential oils, a corked container, and a funnel. Pour the sunflower oil into the container and add a few teaspoons of essential oil.  Allow the mixture to sit for a few days, shaking occasionally.  To house your bath salts you can use a simple mason jar, plastic bags, or test tubes. Just make sure you can seal the contents.   A nice touch is to use a decorative glass jar and perhaps add a ribbon or a bow to make it look great.  You can even add shells, crystals, beads, and dried or artificial flowers to the container to make it look extra special. Your friends will thank you after they use your home made bath salts to take their relaxing body bath.