Working hard on the homestead is often hard on your skin. Constant sunlight, dust, friction, and getting dirty can all play havoc on it. If you are like me, you probably struggle with chronically dry skin and that just makes it even more prone to damage in a never-ending and painful cycle.
Luckily, you can take some time to both relax and rejuvenate your skin all over with a blissfully soothing oat milk bath. Mixing oatmeal, milk, and soothing botanicals, it’ll feel like heaven on Earth slipping into it at the end of a hard day.
And you don’t have to spend a fortune on overpriced stuff from big brands, either. I’ll tell you how to make your own from top quality, and much cheaper, ingredients below.
What Exactly is a Milk Bath?
No surprises here, a milk bath is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a bath-soak made of milk, and often in combination with oatmeal and various botanicals and other ingredients. Everything is combined into a dry mixture that you stir into your bath water to make a relaxing, rejuvenating, and healing soak.
The great thing about them is you can prepare them ahead of time, so they’re ready to pop into your bath water instantly when it’s time to take care of your skin or just take a load off and relax for a bit.
And believe it or not, milk baths have been around forever. You might have even heard your great-grandma talking about them and she probably heard about them from her parents. I’m happy to report that they definitely aren’t snake oil or old wives’ tales: they have proven benefits you’d be smart to embrace!
What Can a Milk Bath Do for You?
Milk baths have tons of benefits, and not just for your skin. For one, they are absolutely great if you have dry, irritated, or itchy skin. The ingredients that you’ll put in your milk bath will release tons of revitalizing and healing nutrients that your epidermis needs in order to repair and retain moisture.
Together with the collagen, antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, cleansers, oils, and exfoliants derived from the other ingredients, your skin will heal, feel wonderful and smooth, and most importantly, stay hydrated so you can better face the hard work ahead.
And, not for nothing, the soothing aroma of an oat milk bath is wonderful for alleviating stress and tension all over. A long soak is going to be wonderful for your mind and body, so this is one luxury that you can definitely feel good about indulging in.
Best of all, you can tailor your oat milk bath to your preferences or to the needs of your skin and body by adding other suitable bath time ingredients. We’ll talk more about that in the next sections…
What is the Best Milk for a Milk Bath?
As strange as it might sound, all kinds of milk have legitimate benefits for your skin, be they of animal or plant origin. You can actually use cow or goat milk, or if you prefer coconut milk, oat milk, almond milk, or others.
And don’t worry; you aren’t going to be steeping in an actual tub full of milk, although people used to do that way back in the day!
You are actually using the milk and the other ingredients to make a solution with the bathwater, but it will still be plenty hydrating and healing for your skin.
The recipe I’ll share with you just below works wonderfully with coconut, almond, and goat milk, so they can be used interchangeably, but you can use any other kind that you want with great results.
Choosing the Right Kinds of Herbs and Other Ingredients
One of the coolest and most fun parts about this entire process is choosing what sorts of herbs, botanicals, and other ingredients you want to include in the mix. Yes, you are allowed to experiment!
You can include various kinds of salts and minerals, dried herbs and flowers, essential oils, and straight-up fragrances if you prefer. But there are just a couple of rules of thumb you should follow.
For starters, try to stick with ingredients that will smell complementary. Cinnamon and lavender don’t really play well together, for instance!
Also, take care when including anything that could be potentially irritating. Many fragrance oils can severely irritate the skin if they’re highly concentrated, but a few drops of your mixture stirred into a tub full of water will be harmless.
In short, it’s all about common sense. Just use your head and you’ll be fine.
What You’ll Need
Ingredients
The ingredients for this oat milk bath are simple and readily available from health food stores or online. You can even get some of them at the grocery store!
- Rolled Oats, 4 Tbsp.: rolled oats are all you need, nothing special, though you should get organic if you can.
- Powdered Milk, 1 Cup: like we talked about above, any kind of milk will work here, but I highly recommend you get dry, powdered milk so your mix will store for a long time and be ready when you want it. Choose a kind that you like, but I think almond, coconut, or goat all work great for this recipe particularly.
- Dried Lavender, ½ Cup: lavender has potent antimicrobial properties and is renowned for its relaxing aroma.
- Bergamot Fragrance, ⅛ tsp.: the unique citrus fragrance of bergamot is also incredibly relaxing, and the oil furnishes vitamins and antioxidants that will help your skin resist damage and repair.
- Epsom Salt, ½ Cup: Epsom salt is proven to relax sore muscles and also help gently exfoliate your skin.
- Baking soda, 4 Tbsp: adding baking soda to our mixture will help soften your bath water, especially important if you have hard water, and to help release dead skin cells from the uppermost layers so that all the good, healing stuff can get to work. Common baking soda works here, nothing special.
Tools
You just need a couple of simple tools that you probably have already, and we can get to work!
- Food Processor if you don’t have a mortar and pestle, don’t worry, a food processor works just fine.
- Mortar and Pestle (optional):: if you have one, a mortar and pestle is ideal for processing the oatmeal and botanicals. Grinding and crushing the ingredients with one will better help to break them down and release the beneficial oils they contain, meaning that they will better permeate your bath water.
- Bowl: a steel or glass bowl for thoroughly combining all of the ingredients.
- Spatula or Mixing Spoon: you can use a spatula or any mixing spoon for this task as long as it is clean.
- Glass Food Storage Jars: the recipe will provide you with enough mix to make two or three full oat milk baths. You want to store it in a glass jar for freshness and to prevent the oils in the botanicals from reacting with plastic.
And that’s it. Now it’s time to put it all together!
Making Your Own DIY Oat Bath, Step-by-Step
Step 1: Grind oats. Using your mortar and pestle or food processor, grind the oats until they have achieved a powder-like consistency. Once they have, transfer them into the mixing bowl.
Step 2: Add powdered milk, salt, and baking soda, and the lavender. Pour all of the above into the bowl with the oats and the lavender. Use your spoon to mix everything together thoroughly, breaking apart clumps if they form.
Step 3: Add bergamot oil. Next, add the bergamot oil and stir vigorously until fully incorporated. Stir for at least 2 minutes to make sure it is completely absorbed by the other ingredients. At this point, your mix should have a texture that looks a little bit like damp sand.
Step 4: Pour mixture into jar. Fill your jar with your newly created mixture and cap it tightly. It is now ready to use!
Step 5: Store. It’s best to keep your oat milk bath mixture in a dark, cool, room-temperature spot for maximum longevity.
Step 6: Use it. Simply stir in anywhere from 2 to 4 tablespoons of your mixture into hot, running bath water, then stir it vigorously. Soak for at least 15 minutes for maximum benefit. Enjoy!
How Long Can You Store Your Oat Milk Bath Blend?
It will last for at least a couple of months, but it can go a bit stale in time so don’t make huge batches that you won’t use in a timely fashion. Likewise, natural oils can go rancid if given enough time, and nobody wants to take a bath in that stuff!
Alternate Recipes to Try
You can have a ton of fun experimenting with different recipes for your oat milk bath, but to help you get started I’m presenting you with a couple of my favorite variations below.
Add Cornstarch to the Recipe Above
Cornstarch might seem like a strange inclusion at first, but after you try it once I think you’ll fall in love with it. This stuff is miraculous for making your skin feel incredibly smooth and almost renewed.
Together with the baking soda, it’s a powerful one-two punch. A ¼ cup is all it takes, so just add it in with the other ingredients when you’re mixing them in the bowl prior to stirring in the oil.
Try it both ways and see which one you like better!
Try This Botanical Powerhouse
This recipe is another of my very favorites, and somehow it’s even more relaxing than the one I shared with you above – though I still prefer that one for maximum moisturizing.
I should note that the botanical ingredients below are all noteworthy for being incredibly gentle on the skin, so no matter how delicate or prone to irritation yours might be, I can all but guarantee that this one will treat you right.
- Rolled Oats, 4 Tbsp
- Powdered Goat Milk, 1 Cup
- Dried Lavender, ⅓ Cup
- Dried Calendula, ⅓ Cup
- Dried Roses, ⅓ Cup
- Dried Chamomile, ⅓ Cup
- Epsom Salt, ½ Cup
- Dead Sea Salts, ¼ Cup
- Baking soda, 4 Tbsp
All you need to do is grind the oats as before into a fine powder, along with any of your dried botanicals that aren’t already crushed up tiny.
You can leave them in small flakes if you prefer, though. Dump all of the ingredients into a bowl, mix it thoroughly, and then it’s ready to go into your jar.
This blend also works great because it will last a very long time since it does not have any liquid essential oils added to it. They will come out when you add it to your bath water, though, and believe me, they smell amazing!
Tom has lived and worked on farms and homesteads from the Carolinas to Kentucky and beyond. He is passionate about helping people prepare for tough times by embracing lifestyles of self-sufficiency.