At the end of a particularly stressful day, there’s nothing quite as relaxing as lighting a few candles and taking a nice, hot bath. While bubbles and shower bombs are a great touch, if you really want to elevate your soak session, you’re going to want to throw the best bath salts into the mix. Different types claim to have different benefits, but we’re here to help you narrow down the best ones for the ultimate routine.
The 10 Best Bath Salts for a Truly Relaxing Evening
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Published Nov 22, 2022
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What Are Bath Salts?
Unlike many bubble baths or bath bombs, bath salts are made from either Epsom salt (aka magnesium sulfate) or different types of sea salt with beneficial properties. They typically dissolve into the hot water, transforming it into a spa-like experience.
How to Use Bath Salts
While the directions for each brand will be a little different, typically, you should add a few handfuls of bath salt to a tub filled with hot water and let it dissipate. But don’t overdo it: You don’t want to oversaturate the water and end up with salt crystals you’ll have to wash out later. You also don’t want to add so few that you can’t experience the benefits of the salts.
What Do Bath Salts Do?
Bath salts do much more than make your tub smell good. According to experts, the magnesium of epsom salt itself may be able to infiltrate the skin to relieve chronic low back pain and headaches, boost your mood and relieve anxiety. Some even claim that it can reduce the risk of stroke, heart disease, diabetes and all-cause mortality.
Other ingredients found in bath salts, such as lavender, rose, chamomile and aloe, which may have anti-inflammatory properties, offer additional advantages that include everything from detoxifying the skin to soothing sore muscles. Plus, you can even add essential oils to them for various aromatherapy benefits. Talk about the perfect way to treat yourself after a long day!
To help you figure out which ones to add to your next bath, we’ve done the deep research into the claims (and even tested some brands ourselves) to find out which ones are actually worth buying. Here are our recommendations.
The Best Bath Salts at a Glance
- Best Overall: Dr Teal's Lavender and Pink Himalayan Mineral Bath Salts
- Best Himalayan Bath Salts: Royal Chef House Himalayan Pink Bath Salts
- Best for Stress: Aveda Stress-Fix Bath Salts
- Most Moisturizing: Tree Hut Shea Moisturizing Bath Salts
- Best for Detoxing: Pursoma Digital Detox Bath Salts
- Most Calming: Herbivore Calm Bath Salts
- Best for Athletes: Coach Soak Muscle Recovery Bath Salts
- Best Foaming Bath Salts: Dove Foaming Bath Salts
- Best Scented Bath Salts: Provence Beauty Pink Himalayan Bath Salts
- Best for Sleep: Aromatika Himalayan Bath Salts
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- Pros: Inexpensive, pure Epsom and Himalayan salt
- Cons: Scent can be overwhelming
Dr Teal’s is a big name in the bath salt game. While it may not have the most aesthetically pleasing packaging, the overall quality of this soak is all the reason people need to keep coming back to it again and again for their bath needs. This blend, in particular, is ideal for restoration after a long day. It features Epsom salt for soreness, pink Himalayan salt for recharging and bergamot and orange essential oils for stress.
- Pros: 100 pure Himalayan salt, mineral rich
- Cons: Extra-coarse texture
For the most natural soak, you’re going to want a bath salt in its purest form. This one is made up entirely of 100 percent natural Himalayan salt, which has detoxing, hydrating and relaxing properties. It’s so pure, in fact, that you technically could use this stuff for cooking, though we recommend saving it exclusively for bath time. You can add as much or as little as you like to your tub, depending on how much detoxing you need.
- Pros: Exfoliates like a scrub, decreases stress
- Cons: Expensive
These bath salts from Aveda were designed with stress in mind. They’re packed with lavender, lavandin and clary sage essential oils that will make your tension slip away as you soak. They also contain organic sugar for some additional exfoliation during your bath. The best part, however? The relaxing scents will linger on for hours post-tub for a calming effect that lasts well into the night.
- Pros: Inexpensive, hydrating shea butter, smells good
- Cons: Bags don’t zip easily
Not only should a bath salt relax you, but it should also give your skin some much-needed moisture instead of drying it out. This one from Tree Hut is quite popular for these purposes, as it contains shea butter for added hydration. It also features nourishing coconut and lime extract, which will also leave you smelling incredible for hours on end.
- Pros: Free of BPA, parabens, sulfates, and phthalates, draws out toxins, 30-minute bath session
- Cons: Single-use
For a more serious soaking session, this Pursoma Digital Detox bath soak will take you to new heights as you put down your phone and dive into a 30-minute bath. It contains sea salt to stimulate circulation and ease sore muscles as well as French green clay, which is meant to soften your skin and draw out toxins. The detox doesn’t end with the bath, though: The brand advises you to lay under a blanket immediately afterward to sweat out even more gunk.
- Pros: Vegan and cruelty-free, two types of salt
- Cons: Only four uses per bottle
Stressful day? The Himalayan pink salt and Pacific sea salt found within this Herbivore bath salt aim to aid in muscle relaxation, while ylang-ylang and vanilla essences go to work calming the nervous system. The result? A feeling of pure euphoric bliss once you leave the tub.
- Pros: Energizing citrus oils, designed to speed up muscle recovery
- Cons Smell can be strong
An intense workout session calls for some serious attention to one’s muscles. You can forget the ice bath, though: This comforting bath salt mixture has energizing citrus essence to wake you up. It also features magnesium flakes, mineral-rich dead sea salts, vitamin C crystals and pure essential oils—ingredients that are said to reduce inflammation and speed up the post-sweat recovery process.
- Pros Budget-friendly, creates bubbles, fresh floral scent
- Cons Fragrance lingers in the tub
Want the benefits of a bath salt but the foaming fun of a bubble bath? Look no further than these Dove bath salts. With rose, peony and jasmine petals, this pick will have you feeling like you’re being enveloped in a field of flowers as it soothes your tired, sore muscles. Both sulfate-free and paraben-free, this plant-based option creates a light, bubbly foam while naturally moisturizing your dry, rough skin. As an added bonus, the bottle comes from 100% recycled materials.
- Pros: Budget-friendly, smells heavenly, cruelty-free
- Cons: May collect salt in the tub
It's a little known fact that you can add rose petals to just about anything to up your fancy factor—take, for instance, these Dead Sea pink salts, which are also laced with grapefruit and ylang-ylang essential oils for a light, uplifting blend. With larger crystals to scrub away dead skin cells and keep your epidermis silky-soft, they exfoliate on the outside while also allowing you to soak up vitamins and minerals, like magnesium, potassium, zinc and more. Better yet, they're said to be cruelty-free.
- Pros: Simple, natural ingredients, good size and texture
- Cons: Takes a while to melt
Options are good. Options with simple, natural, and healing ingredients are even better. This blend, which customers say has a "just right" size and consistency, is about as uncontaminated of a bath salt as you'll find, with its 100 percent pure essential and carrier oils (all the better for relaxation and sleep). Soaking in it after a workout class will reportedly soothe those sore muscles, too.
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Courtney Campbell is a freelance writer, editor and overall shopping addict. She started her career testing and writing about products for Reviewed and will now shared her favorite things to anyone who will listen. Her work has also appeared in Apartment Therapy, SELF, MyDomaine, StyleCaster and more.
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