After a long day, a nice long soak in a hot bath is just the ticket and adding bath salts can greatly enhance the experience. Whether you have sore, tired feet from standing all day, or a stiff back from working at your desk, bath salts can help improve the way you feel and ease away the tension. Not only do bath salts come in a variety of soothing fragrances, they also offer many other benefits including certain healing properties.

You might be surprised to learn that adding a little salt to your water can actually help improve your circulation. Bath salts also reduce tenderness and are recommended for people with back pain, arthritis, muscle tension or spasms, and minor work and sports injuries. They're great for easing stiff, sore, muscles and aching feet and legs.

Bath salts open the pores to purify the skin, cleansing away dirt, sweat, and toxins. They aid in the healing of dry skin, making skin softer and more supple. Salts can help improve common irritations such as insect bites, minor rashes, and calluses on feet, as well as more serious skin conditions like athlete's foot, eczema, and psoriasis.

If you have hard water (as I do), you'll find that bath salts soften the water, giving it an almost silky, soft feeling. You'll find your soaps and shampoos will be bubblier and foamier.

Salts made with essential oils offer the added benefit of aromatherapy. Pleasant, soothing scents, such as Lavender and Patchouli, have been shown to induce calmness and promote relaxation. Scented bath salts combine these attributes with other healing properties. The ability to relax and unwind at the end of the day is also the best way to insure sound, restful sleep at night, and bath salts can help.

Bath salts come in many colors, scents, and varieties from fine to coarse. You can choose several different types to try separately, or you can mix them together to create your own favorite scents and textures. Exposure to sunlight, indoor lamp light and air dissipates the fragrance in your salts, so always store, well sealed (if in a ziploc bag, reclose it, if in a jar, reseal it) in a cool, dark place. The back of a closet or a bathroom cabinet under the sink should work. By following these directions, salts should stay fresh up to 6 months. I know it smells nice to leave your bath salts out and in the open, but it only smells nice because the fragrance in the salts is evaporating and disappearing. SALTS ARE TO BE USED! Don't hoard them, you deserve to use them as much as you like and you can always get more. If buying for a gift or as party favors, don't buy them more than 30 days before the event, to assure maximum freshness.

If you feeling like channeling your "inner Martha", here are a few easy bath salt recipes made with ingredients you can usually find at your local grocery store and/or health food store. I am just listing the ingredients, the directions are all the same, mix well and add to your bath water. I find it better to add the salts right when you start your water, that way the salts have time to dissolve and you won't be sitting on any gritty pieces:

Bath Salts:
Sea Salt 3 tbsp
Epsom Salt 3 tbsp
Baking Soda 3 tbsp
Fragrance or Essential Oils 8 drops

Fizzy Bath Salts:
Sea Salt 3 tbsp
Baking Soda 3 tbsp
Citric Acid 1 tbsp
Fragrance or Essential Oils 8 drops

Basic Bath Salt Soak:
3 tbsp sea salts 
6 tbsp baking soda 
3 tbsp Epsom salts
1 tbsp glycerin
Fragrance or Esssential Oils 8 drops