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3 Amazing Milk Bath Benefits + 5 Recipes

Milk Bath Benefits

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

A bath full of fresh flowers and candles

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.

  1.   Empty the red salts out onto a piece of wax paper and allow to dry.
  2.   Combine the powdered milk, oats and rose essential oil.
  3.   Pulse the dry ingredients in a food processer until smooth. (Make sure the oats are finely ground to avoid clogging pipes).
  4.   Layer the pink salt, oats and milk mixture and the dried rose petals in a clean jar.
  5.   Pour the mixture into the tub while the water is running into the tub.
  6.   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

cleopatra

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:

BenefitsIngredients In MilkHow It Works
HydratesVitamins, fats and mineralsRestores lost moisture and nourishes the skin
ExfoliatesLactic acidRemoves dead skin cells from the top layer of skin and smooths the skin’s texture
Reduces
inflammation
Proteins and vitaminsSoothes, calms and moisturizes irritated and inflamed skin

The Healthiest Milk To Use In A Milk Bath

Coconut milk can be used in a milk and honey 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 TypeDescription
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!
ButtermilkContains 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 milkMilk powder moisturizes skin

Oat milkAnti-inflammatory, oat milk soothes and eases irritated and dry skin
Coconut milkWhen added to tepid water coconut milk calms and moisturizes irritated skin
Cashew milkContains 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

Milk and Honey Bath Recipe

Here is my favorite milk and honey bath recipe:

 Ingredients 

 Directions

  1. 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.
  2. Next, mix honey into a mug of coconut milk. Stir in dried turmeric and dried ginger.
  3. In a separate bowl, stir frankincense essential oil into coconut oil.
  4. Fill the tub with hot water. Add honey mixture to water and stir with your hand. Then add oils and mix with your hand.
  5. Toss in a handful of dried flowers (e.g. strawflowers and gomphrena globose).
  6. Slip into the tub and relax!

Customize your Basic Milk and Honey Bath Recipe

milk and honey

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!

HoneysSpicesScents
Avocado Blossom Honey

GingerLemon Zest

Manuka HoneyTurmericMint leaf

Thyme HoneyCinnamonFrankincense Essential Oil
Buckwheat HoneyFennelLavender 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

Dried flowers used in the Spring Garden recipe

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?

Chocolate Bath

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

Bathing in Chocolate

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

  1. Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a small bowl.
  2. Fill the bathtub with hot water. 
  3. If you are using fresh milk, add it to the warm water.
  4. Pour the dry ingredients into the warm water.
  5. Swirl the water with your hand until the powder has dissolved.
  6. Soak for 20 minutes.

Can a Milk Bath Soothe Sunburn?

Sunburn and Milk Bath

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

Milk Bath for Sunburn

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

  1. Run cold water into the tub.
  2. Pour the milk into the bathtub.
  3. Stir the water with your hand until the milk is mixed in.
  4. Add your extra ingredients.
  5. Relax and soak for 20 minutes.

Customize Your Basic Sunburn Milk Bath Recipe

Milk Bath for Sunburn

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.

IngredientsBenefitsHow to use
Essential oilsPromote healing and reduce the symptoms of sunburn.Add 10 drops to the carrier oil. Mix, then add to the tub of wate
Carrier oilsReduce the risk of skin irritationUse 2 tablespoons per 5 drops of essential oils
Bath saltsMoisturize the skin and soothe painPour 2 cups of bath salts into the tub under the spout while the water is running
HoneyAnti-inflammatory properties soothe the skinAdd 1 tablespoon to the tub of water
Baking sodaAntifungal properties soothe irritated skinAdd 2 heaped tablespoons to the tub of water
Epsom saltsAnti-inflammatory properties soothe burns, swelling, and hivesDissolve 1 cup in the tub of water
OatmealAnti-inflammatory properties provide relief from itchinessAdd 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

lavender-oil

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

  1. Mix essential oil with a carrier oil.
  2. Now mix all the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.
  3. Store in a pretty, airtight container until ready to use.
  4. To use, simply pour into the tub while the water is running.
  5. Climb into the tub and soak for 20 minutes.
  6. Remember to clean out the tub and remove the flowers!

So, Is a Milk Bath Beneficial To Your Health?

Sunburn - try a milk bath

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

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