Menthol & Rosemary Shower Steamers
If you're not a bath person or you just don't have a bathtub then you can still enjoy a spa-like experience in your shower. Especially now, in cold fall days and with winter almost knocking on the door shower steamers are something you should at least try.
If you know what a shower steamer is and you're here for the recipe and the tutorial then you should scroll down.
A shower steamer is a shower version of a bath bomb. It contains similar ingredients but we use them differently. We place a shower steamer on the floor of the shower and once it contacts the water the fizzing reaction of sodium bicarbonate and citric acid sets off and releases all the essential and/or fragrance oils in the air.
Depending on the essential oil blend shower steamers can have many designations:
lavender - relaxing, calming
citrus - energizing, uplifting, refreshing
menthol crystals, peppermint, eucalyptus, green tea, rosemary - refreshing, sinus releasing
Of course, there are way more options and you can create your essential oil blends (floral, herbal, fruity, etc).
I went for a super refreshing combo of menthol crystals, eucalyptus essential oil, and rosemary essential oil.
Now, let's take a look at our recipe:
INGREDIENT NAME
Baking Soda
1 cup
Citric Acid
1/2 cup
Cornstarch
1/4 cup
Cream of Tartar or Kaolin Clay
1 tbsp.
Apricot Kernel Oil (or any other lightweight oil of your choice)
1 tbsp.
Polysorbate 80
1/2 tbsp.
Menthol Crystals
1 tsp
Rosemary Essential Oil
1 tsp
Eucalyptus Essential oil
1 tsp
- Mix all of the dry ingredients very well. Sift them if needed. Make sure to break all of those little clumps if you want your shower steamers to be perfectly smooth.
2. Now dissolve menthol crystals in your carrier oil and essential oil blend or rubbing alcohol. I used oil to dissolve mine.
3. Now incorporate your oils into the dry mixture. Mix well. If you want to add colorant to your shower steamers now would be the time.
4. Now we need to test the consistency. At this point you should be able to get a soft clump like mine (check the picture down below). It sticks together but breaks very easily when pressure is applied.
5. It's time to add out binder of choice. I went for water but you can use rubbing alcohol or witch hazel whatever works best for you. I added about 4 ml and my consistency was perfect. You may need more or less depending on your humidity level. Now my clump is sturdy, when I drop it into my bowl it doesn't break apart.
6. I used halves of my round bath bomb mold to press my shower steamers. You can use bath bomb press or moon cake press or 3d molds, it's up to you. I tried moon cake press this time and it didn't go as well as I anticipated so I switched.
Now they have too dry for about 24-48 hours. Once completely dry they can be packaged, labeled, and stored in a cool dry place.
I hope this post was interesting for you.
P.S Those beautiful gorgeous pictures of all those flowers, fruits and herbs are not mine. I don't have a good camera so I use my cell phone to take pictures of the process and my stuff. I found the professional pictures on unsplash.com. The internet’s source of freely-usable images.