If you love homemade bath salts but don’t love fishing dried lavender, rose petals, and herbs out of the tub afterward, bath tea bags are such a simple solution.
They’re basically single-use bath salt sachets filled with Epsom salt, essential oils, and dried botanicals. Drop one into warm bath water and the salts dissolve through the bag while the dried flowers and herbs stay contained inside.
They’re easy to make for yourself, but they’re especially cute for gifts. You can package them individually, bundle a few together, or create a little bath tea flight with several different scents.
In this article, I’ll show you what to put in your bath tea bags, how much to use, which types of bags work best, and a few pretty ways to package them for some really cute, inexpensive DIY gifts that are well under $5 per gift!
Bath Tea Bags DIY: The Base Recipe
You only need a handful of ingredients to make bath tea bags, and you can customize the botanicals and essential oils to create different scents.
For the bath salt mixture:
- 1 cup Epsom salt
- 1/4 cup baking soda
- 1/4 cup dried botanicals, such as lavender, chamomile, rose petals, eucalyptus, or dried citrus peel
- 12–16 drops essential oil, such as lavender or eucalyptus
For the bath tea bags:
- Small muslin drawstring bags for a sturdy option (available cheap in bulk online or at craft stores)
- Large disposable tea filter bags or nonwoven drawstring filter bags for a more traditional tea-bag look
- Spoon or small scoop for filling
- Tags, twine, or ribbon if you’re making them as gifts
A quick note about the bags: Skip flimsy everyday tea bags if you can. Once they’re saturated, they can tear and release the dried flowers and herbs into the bath. Muslin bags are the most durable option, but sturdy disposable herbal tea filters are a great choice if you want each bath tea to be single-use. We’ll look at the different bag options below.
How to Make Bath Tea Bags
1. Mix the salts. Add 1 cup of Epsom salt and 1/4 cup baking soda to a medium bowl and stir until combined.
2. Add the essential oils. Add 12–16 drops of your chosen essential oil and stir thoroughly so the oil is evenly distributed throughout the salts.
3. Add the botanicals. Gently stir in 1/4 cup of dried flowers or herbs.
4. Divide between four bags. Spoon approximately 1/3 cup of the mixture into each bath tea bag. Don’t pack the bags tightly; leave some room for water to circulate through the ingredients.
5. Close securely. Cinch muslin or drawstring filter bags tightly. If you’re using another type of fillable tea filter, close it according to the manufacturer’s directions.
6. Store until you’re ready to use them. Keep the finished bath tea bags somewhere cool and dry, preferably in an airtight container if you’re not packaging them immediately.
To use: Drop one bag into a tub of warm running water. Let it steep while you soak, occasionally swishing it gently through the water. Remove the bag before draining the tub.
Three Scent Blends You Can Mix In
Once you’ve got the base down, swapping the herbs and oils gives you a few distinct gift options from one afternoon of work:
Lavender Chamomile — for the person who needs to unwind after literally any kind of day. Use dried lavender buds and chamomile flowers with lavender essential oil.
Citrus Eucalyptus — for the person who wants “spa day” energy, not “sleepy time” energy. Use dried orange or lemon peel with eucalyptus essential oil.
Rose Vanilla — for the person who’d 100% buy this at a boutique for $18. Use dried rose petals with a few drops of vanilla extract mixed into a light carrier oil, plus a couple drops of rose essential oil if you have it.
What Kind of Bags Should You Use for Bath Tea?
The best bath tea bags let the salts dissolve into the water while keeping dried flowers and herbs contained. A few good options:
Muslin drawstring bags — The sturdiest option and especially cute for gifts. Choose a size that comfortably holds about 1/3 cup without being packed tightly.
Disposable drawstring filter bags — A great option if you want the look of an oversized tea bag. Look for sturdy nonwoven bags designed for loose-leaf tea or herbs.
Fillable tea filter bags — These work too, especially for making gifts in bulk. Choose larger filters with good wet strength; some can even be heat-sealed for a more polished look.
What about regular tea bags? Thin paper tea bags can tear once they’re saturated, so they’re not my first choice. If you already have them, double-bagging adds some extra protection. (I’ll do the double-bag technique when making the bath salts for myself, but they don’t look quite as pretty when gifting!).
Packaging Bath Salts as a Gift
A few things that make these look like a real gift instead of a baggie of salt:
- Add a tag. Tie muslin bags with twine or ribbon and add a small paper tag with the scent name and simple instructions like “Steep like tea in your bath.” For disposable filter bags, you can attach the tag right to the string.
- Create a bath tea flight. Package three different scents together in a small kraft box or clear gift bag. Label each blend so the recipient can choose a different “tea” for each bath.
- Bundle a trio. Stack three bath tea bags together and wrap them with ribbon or twine for an easy gift that doesn’t require a box.
- Wrap them individually. Slip a single bath tea bag into a small glassine or clear gift bag with a pretty label or instruction card. This works especially well for favors or small gifts.
- Include instructions. A small handwritten note on how to use it goes a long way — bath tea isn’t an intuitive product at a glance, so a quick instruction avoids confusion
How to Make the Tags for your DIY Bath Tea Gift
These little tags look fancy, but they’re surprisingly easy to make. Use kraft cardstock or pre-cut kraft gift tags, then add the scent name and a small botanical illustration. I love these…
For a polished look like this one, create your tags in Canva using a simple serif font and a small lavender, rose, or eucalyptus illustration. Print several tags on one sheet of kraft cardstock, cut them out, and use a hole punch to attach them with cotton string or twine.
Free Downloadable Gift Tags
Feel free to download these tags and use for your gifts!
Click here to open the PDF file and save to your computer or phone.
Don’t have a printer? Keep it even simpler: buy blank kraft tags and handwrite the scent name with a fine-tip black pen, then add a tiny sprig of dried lavender or a simple hand-drawn leaf.
Perfect for all of your DIY gifts!
What to put on the tag:
Front: Lavender Chamomile • Bath Tea
Back: Drop into a warm bath, steep while you soak, and remove before draining.
And I really like that last part because it solves two problems at once: the tag makes the gift look cute and tells the recipient what the heck they’re supposed to do with it. 😄
What a Real Gift Actually Costs (Not Just One Bag)
One tea bag on its own is a nice gesture, but it’s not really “a gift” — the bath tea flight (3–4 bags per person) we mentioned above is what actually feels like something someone would want to receive. So the cost that matters isn’t per bag, it’s per gift set.
One batch of the base recipe (the ingredients listed above) runs about $8–10 and makes roughly 6–8 tea bag portions — which is really only enough for 2 gift sets of 3–4 bags each. That’s the trap a lot of “cost per item” math falls into: it looks cheap per bag, but doesn’t account for the fact that nobody’s gifting a single bag.
Making These in Bulk for a Longer List (5–10 People)
If you’ve got a list of teachers, coworkers, or neighbors, here’s how the batch scales when you’re building actual gift sets of 3 bags each, not single bags:
| 5 People | 10 People | |
|---|---|---|
| Bags Needed (3 per gift) | 15 bags | 30 bags |
| Batch Size | ~2× base recipe | ~4× base recipe |
| Est Total Cost | $16–20 | $30–36 |
| Cost per Gift | ~$3 – $4 | ~$3 |
To scale up, just multiply every ingredient in the base recipe by the same factor — for a 10-person batch, that’s 8 cups Epsom salt, 1 cup dried herbs, and roughly 40–60 drops of essential oil (adjust to your nose, not just the math). Buying Epsom salt in a larger 4 lb bag instead of small containers is what brings the per-gift cost down as you scale — it’s noticeably cheaper per cup than buying several small boxes.
The time-saver for bulk batches: mix one large batch of your favorite scent blend instead of trying to make 3 different scents in bulk quantities — save the scent variety (Lavender Chamomile, Citrus Eucalyptus, Rose Vanilla) for smaller batches or gifts for people whose preferences you know well, and pick one crowd-pleasing scent (lavender is the safest bet) for the bulk of your list.
Bath Tea Bags DIY: Frequently Asked Questions
Empty, unused tea bags work in a pinch, but they’re smaller and can tear more easily under bathwater. Muslin bags hold up better and can be reused.
The dry mix stays good for a few months in an airtight container. Once bagged, keep them somewhere dry — humidity is the main thing that shortens their shelf life.
Epsom salt itself is generally gentle, but skip the essential oils or use a much smaller amount for anyone with sensitive skin, and always patch-test a new scent blend before gifting it to someone with known sensitivities.
Yes — see the bulk batch table above. Just multiply every ingredient by the same factor to scale up, and buy your Epsom salt in a larger bag once you’re making enough gifts to justify it.
More Budget-Friendly Homemade Gifts to Pair With This
- DIY Peppermint Sugar Scrub — another bath gift from the same budget-friendly gift series
- DIY Christmas Soap Bars — pairs naturally with these in a small gift set
- Christmas Simmer Pot Recipes — another quick jar-style gift if you’re making several at once
- Homemade Shower Steamers – these shower “bombs” would look great in a gift basket with the tea bags
