Have you ever tried soaking in a milk bath? Simply by adding milk and a few of your favorite ingredients to your tub, you can create a luxurious, extravagant, and decadent soaking experience.
Milk is an all-natural ingredient with many health benefits. Used to hydrate and exfoliate irritated, dry, and damaged skin, milk restores lost moisture while nourishing the skin. Adding honey, scents, and spices to the milk bath enhances the bather’s sense of well-being.
A milk bath might seem like an extravagance, but with a little ingenuity and a few ingredients from your kitchen, you can create a wonderful soaking experience. Read on to find out why a milk bath is super beneficial to your health!
But first, I’ll share one of my all-time favorite milk bath recipes.
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Fabulous Rose Milk Bath Recipe
This rose milk bath recipe is so easy to make! Rose Essential oil is used in the treatment of dry, inflamed, and sensitive skin. Because of its regenerative properties, it is used as an anti-aging oil!
Ingredients
- 1 Cup Powdered Milk
- ¾ Cup Salt (coarse sea salt, Himalayan pink salt, or Epsom salts)
- 10 Drops of Rose Essential Oil
- A Few Drops of Red Soap Dye
- 1 Cup Rolled Oats (or look for colloidal oatmeal which is ground)
- 1 Cup Dried Rose Petals
Directions
Mix the salt and soap dye in a small mixing bowl.
- Empty the red salts out onto a piece of wax paper and allow to dry.
- Combine the powdered milk, oats and rose essential oil.
- Pulse the dry ingredients in a food processer until smooth. (Make sure the oats are finely ground to avoid clogging pipes).
- Layer the pink salt, oats and milk mixture and the dried rose petals in a clean jar.
- Pour the mixture into the tub while the water is running into the tub.
- Step into the tub and relax!
Why not double the recipe and store it in an air-tight jar on your bathroom shelf until you are ready to use it again?
Or whip up a huge batch, pour it into beautiful glass containers, and give it away to your friends as gifts!
3 Miraculous Milk Bath Benefits
Remember Cleopatra, the most beautiful Queen of Egypt in ancient times? The secret to her silky skin was reported to be due to her ritual of soaking in milk baths that preserved and enhanced her skin.
A primitive milk bath was good enough for Cleopatra back in the day, and she soaked in sour donkey milk! With our modern methods of pasteurizing milk, and the wide variety of milks available, a milk bath should make you feel like you are living like a queen!
Wondering what the benefits are to soaking in a milk tub? See the chart below:
| Benefits | Ingredients In Milk | How It Works |
|---|---|---|
| Hydrates | Vitamins, fats and minerals | Restores lost moisture and nourishes the skin |
| Exfoliates | Lactic acid | Removes dead skin cells from the top layer of skin and smooths the skin’s texture |
| Reduces inflammation | Proteins and vitamins | Soothes, calms and moisturizes irritated and inflamed skin |
The Healthiest Milk To Use In A Milk Bath
While any milk in your refrigerator is perfect for using in your bathtub, there are certain milk types that are more beneficial than others. And, if you are lactose intolerant or vegan, you can use any milk type that agrees with your lifestyle.
| Milk Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Cow's milk | Whole or full-fat milk is the best milk type for a great soaking experience as it helps to reduce inflammation while locking in moisture. If 2% is all you have in the fridge – use it! |
| Buttermilk | Contains lactic acid and is a gentle exfoliator, removing dead skin and leaving you with silky smooth skin. |
| Goats milk | The high-fat content in goats' milk will replenish the moisture in dry and damaged skin |
| Powdered milk | Milk powder moisturizes skin |
| Oat milk | Anti-inflammatory, oat milk soothes and eases irritated and dry skin |
| Coconut milk | When added to tepid water coconut milk calms and moisturizes irritated skin |
| Cashew milk | Contains copper which helps to boost the body’s production of collagen to keep skin looking young and healthy. |
My Favorite Milk and Honey Bath Recipe
Here is my favorite milk and honey bath recipe:
Ingredients
- ½ Cup Raw Manuka Honey
- 1 Cup Whole Cow’s Milk
- 2 Tbsp Dried Turmeric
- 2 Tbsp Dried Ginger
- Orange Peel Ribbons
- 20 Drops Frankincense Essential Oil
- 4 Tbsp Coconut Oil (melted)
- 1 cup Assorted Dried Flowers
Directions
- Put honey into a dish and microwave it for about 15 seconds. You want to warm it but not make it hot, so check every 10 additional seconds. The idea is to get it into a state where it can more easily dissolve into your tub water, but you don’t want to ruin the amazing emollient and healing properties of the raw honey.
- Next, mix honey into a mug of coconut milk. Stir in dried turmeric and dried ginger.
- In a separate bowl, stir frankincense essential oil into coconut oil.
- Fill the tub with hot water. Add honey mixture to water and stir with your hand. Then add oils and mix with your hand.
- Toss in a handful of dried flowers (e.g. strawflowers and gomphrena globose).
- Slip into the tub and relax!
Customize your Basic Milk and Honey Bath Recipe
Adding kitchen spices and fragrant oils to your tub allows you to customize your soak by adding what you need to soothe your aches and pains, not to mention soothe your soul!
Choose from These Ingredients
Adding flavored honey, spices, and scents to your milk bath can enhance the health benefits. Choose from any of these ingredients and add a touch of the exotic to your bath time!
| Honeys | Spices | Scents |
|---|---|---|
| Avocado Blossom Honey | Ginger | Lemon Zest |
| Manuka Honey | Turmeric | Mint leaf |
| Thyme Honey | Cinnamon | Frankincense Essential Oil |
| Buckwheat Honey | Fennel | Lavender Essential Oil |
If you’re using essential oils, remember to use a carrier oil like coconut, jojoba, olive, or rosehip to mix with the essential oils. Carrier oils disperse essential oils evenly throughout the water and carry them to your skin.
Learn more about which essential oils are best to use in the bath and which you should definitely avoid!
Dried Flowers for Your Milk Bath
A milk bath is incomplete without a sprinkling of dried flowers gently floating on the surface. A sprinkle of dried flowers adds that extra touch of elegance and luxury.
Any flowers will do, but my personal favorites are hot pink rosebuds, golden strawflowers and royal purple gomphrena globose. A final sprinkle over the top of the milky water before climbing into the tub adds a finishing touch to the bathing celebration and calms my mind and my mood.
I ordered Miss Young’s Dried Botanical Flowers, which comes with eight packets of different blooms. As an added bonus, these dried flowers are reusable. After draining the tub simply scoop up the buds from the bottom of the tub, squeeze the excess water, then place them in a pretty dish on the counter to dry. Soon they’re ready to use again.
Is a Milky Chocolate Bath Healthy?
Who doesn’t like chocolate? A chocolate bath combines all the goodness and health benefits of a milk bath with the health benefits of cocoa – or chocolate, as we like to call it.
Milk is packed with nutrients like Vitamins B and D, phosphorous, and calcium, while cocoa contains many minerals and nutrients like iron and zinc that are beneficial to the good health of your body.
Adding cocoa to your milk bath has these additional health benefits:
- Selenium boosts your immune system
- Iron increases energy and focus
- Zinc accelerates the healing of wounds
- Magnesium maintains healthy muscles and the nervous system
- Theobromine reduces inflammation and protects against cancer, heart disease and diabetes
- Phytonutrients regulate your metabolism and aids in weight loss
- Flavanols protect your heart from heart disease
Simply add cocoa powder or chocolate fragrance oil to your milk bath – its that simple!
Plain dark chocolate with a cocoa content of 70% – 85% without any added dried fruit or nuts is considered healthier than any other chocolate.
If you prefer, use cocoa powder. Check the labels on the packaging for the cocoa content – unsweetened is best.
Chocolate Milk Pampering Bath Soak
Try this recipe for an added ooh-la-la experience in your tub. Simply by adding milk, a dash of cocoa, and your favorite ingredients to your bath water, you can create a sensual soaking experience while boosting your energy at the same time!
Ingredients
- 8 Tablespoons Unsweetened Cocoa Powder – Hershey’s cocoa is my favorite – 100% cocoa, gluten-free
- 2 Tablespoons Cornstarch
- 1 1/2 Cups Full-Fat Milk of Your Choice, fresh or powdered
Directions
- Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a small bowl.
- Fill the bathtub with hot water.
- If you are using fresh milk, add it to the warm water.
- Pour the dry ingredients into the warm water.
- Swirl the water with your hand until the powder has dissolved.
- Soak for 20 minutes.
Can a Milk Bath Soothe Sunburn?
Sunburn is inflamed skin and we all know that the quickest way to get immediate relief is to cool down the area as quickly as possible.
A milk bath offers sunburn relief, cooling and nourishing the skin, to quickly alleviate pain.
The trick to this soothing bath is the water temperature – remember to never use warm or hot water but instead, make the water as cold as you can stand it.
Basic Sunburn Milk Bath Recipe
The basic recipe for a milk bath to treat sunburn is quite simple. You can add many other ingredients to customize the basic recipe, depending on your needs:
Ingredients
- 1 – 2 Cups of Milk (your choice) – I found this amazing product, Nature by Canus Foaming Milk Bath, online. Made from fresh goat’s milk, it is packed with all the nutrients required to soothe your sunburned skin.
Directions
- Run cold water into the tub.
- Pour the milk into the bathtub.
- Stir the water with your hand until the milk is mixed in.
- Add your extra ingredients.
- Relax and soak for 20 minutes.
Customize Your Basic Sunburn Milk Bath Recipe
Adding milk to your tub water is a tried and tested way of relieving pain and inflammation caused by sunburn. Customize your soak by adding any of the ingredients from the table below.
| Ingredients | Benefits | How to use |
|---|---|---|
| Essential oils | Promote healing and reduce the symptoms of sunburn. | Add 10 drops to the carrier oil. Mix, then add to the tub of wate |
| Carrier oils | Reduce the risk of skin irritation | Use 2 tablespoons per 5 drops of essential oils |
| Bath salts | Moisturize the skin and soothe pain | Pour 2 cups of bath salts into the tub under the spout while the water is running |
| Honey | Anti-inflammatory properties soothe the skin | Add 1 tablespoon to the tub of water |
| Baking soda | Antifungal properties soothe irritated skin | Add 2 heaped tablespoons to the tub of water |
| Epsom salts | Anti-inflammatory properties soothe burns, swelling, and hives | Dissolve 1 cup in the tub of water |
| Oatmeal | Anti-inflammatory properties provide relief from itchiness | Add 2 cups to the tub of water. Make sure to grind so pipes don’t clog. Or use colloidal oatmeal, which is already in powder form |
Lovely Lavender Milk Bath Recipe
To round off our milk bath recipes, try this lovely lavender recipe. While the warm milk soothes and nourishes your skin, the fragrance of the lavender oils calms your mind and your soul – bliss! – the ultimate in relaxation!!
Ingredients
- 8 Drops of Lavender Essential Oil
- 2 Tbsp Jojoba Oil (or other carrier oil)
- 1 Cup Dry Powdered Milk
- 1 Cup Epsom Salts
- ¼ Cup Baking Soda
- ¼ Cup Dried Lavender Flowers
Directions
- Mix essential oil with a carrier oil.
- Now mix all the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.
- Store in a pretty, airtight container until ready to use.
- To use, simply pour into the tub while the water is running.
- Climb into the tub and soak for 20 minutes.
- Remember to clean out the tub and remove the flowers!
So, Is a Milk Bath Beneficial To Your Health?
If you do have any medical conditions, always check with your doctor before adding milk to your tub of water. If you are lactose intolerant or have sensitive skin, a milk bath night not be the safest option for you
However, if you can indulge in a long soak in a milky tub at the end of the day, dim the lights, relax and enjoy the silky-smooth experience. Soaking in a tub of milk can do wonders for your skin and your well-being!
Want to feel your best? Get our free bath recipe guide. Then bring on the bathtub bliss!
Tags: chocolate milk bath, DIY milk bath recipes, milk and honey bath, milk bath and sunburn, milk bath benefits