Midweek Craft: Rose Cinnamon Milk Bath

A couple years ago, my friend told me that when you wake up suddenly after a night of drinking, it’s because your blood sugar dropped as a result of your body metabolizing the alcohol, and so all you have to do is drink some juice and you’ll be able to go back to sleep immediately. This happened to me this morning around 4:30, but I was out of juice, so instead I went to the Piggly Wiggly to grab some powdered milk and make a craft.

I know, I’m extremely glamorous.

The result is a really easy milk bath/bath salts hybrid that was inspired by a milk jam I recently ate that was rose and cinnamon and lemon flavored. I know that sounds like a weird combination, but it was right tasty. I have been dreaming of taking a milk bath of late, so I messed around with some bath salt recipes until I got one I liked for a milk salts (TM! TM! TM! Don’t even THINK about taking that from me). Here’s the result:

Behold: A really nice gift that takes under one minute to make.

Pretty, right? I can’t wait to loll about in the tub with a heaping spoonful of this bad boy. After the jump, I am going to BLOW YOUR MIND.

Obligatory shot of all the ingredients lined up:

Ooo, powdered milk.

You will need the following:

1 1/2 cups of powdered milk (ew, but okay, whatever)

1/2 cup of Epsom salts

2-5 drops of lemon essential oil OR the zest of half a lemon

2 cinnamon sticks

1/4 cup (plus or minus) rose petals

This is so easy, I can’t even believe I’m going to write instructions, but just in case:

Measure out your milk and Epsom salts and mix them up. Crush up the cinnamon bark and dried rose petals in your little handsies and mix those in. If you’re using zest, throw that in, too. If not, drop a couple drops of essential oil in (less is more, way, way more), and mix one last time. If you are a heathen, you could put a drop or two of red food coloring in this sucker, but you are not a heathen. I poured this into a pretty tea tin that I spray painted gold- voila! This costs about five dollars per recipe, and you can get about two decent-sized jars out of it.

When you want to use it, put about three or four tablespoons in your bathwater and relax. Milk baths are supposed to be good for your skin (lactic acid = best acid, yes?), and everyone knows that roses are extremely fancy. If you’re not nuts about the flavor combo I’ve made here, I’ve got some other combos you could try: orange zest + dried basil, dried lavender + dried mint leaves, dried hostas + the scraped insides of a vanilla bean. Go wild! This is America! You want about a third of a cup of “extras” total, so do what feels right, you crazy kid.

Stay tuned for more mid-week craft projects! I’ve really been on a roll lately.