Pine Bath Salt Recipe for Relaxation and Pain Relief

If you’re looking for something to help you unwind and soothe sore muscles, you need to give this easy pine bath salt recipe a try! Using foraged pine needles, these simple homemade bath salts relax and refresh. They also make a great homemade gift with a festive holiday feel.

An herb too often overlooked, pine is an incredible addition to your herbal tool kit. Beloved for its pain- and stress-relieving properties, pine makes a relaxing bath even more beneficial.

Best of all, pine bath salts are a snap to make and are a lovely seasonal last-minute gift idea you can throw together in minutes.

On a recent walk, I discovered that some high winds had thrown down tons of little pine boughs. I was running low on my go-to pine needle tincture, so I gathered up as many as I could carry and hauled them home.

After brewing a pot of pine needle tea and chopping needles for tincture, I thought about how else to use these abundant pine needles, especially since it was time to start working on easy homemade gifts.

Pine bath salts were the perfect project. I’ve been making simple DIY bath salts for years, but I hadn’t done much with herbal additions. Occasionally I use lavender from the garden to make lavender bath salts, but using foraged pine? So much less expected.

And they look beautiful.

Those hard-to-buy-for folks on my list are definitely getting these this year!

Benefits of Pine Bath Salts

Pine has been used by native peoples and herbalists for centuries. Modern research has found that pine needles have a number of medicinal properties, including:

• anti-inflammatory
• pain relieving
• antimicrobial

Pine is also especially helpful for alleviating respiratory complaints, so theoretically a soak in a tub with pine bath salts could be beneficial if someone has a cold. I’d be more inclined to try pine needle tea.

Note that some people are allergic to pine. Anyone with a pine allergy should certainly avoid bathing with pine bath salts.

How to Make Pine Bath Salts

Like other bath salt recipes, pine bath salts are a snap to throw together, using nothing more than epsom salts, essential oils, and herbs.

Ingredients for Pine Bath Salt Recipe

Epsom salts. You can often find big bags for a few dollars at the drugstore or supermarket or order them online. Additional options here.

Pine needles. You can also use spruce or fir. If you’re not confident about how to identify conifer trees, read this guide to distinguishing spruce vs. fir vs. pine.

And yes, you can use your Christmas tree for bath salts. It’s best if you have a natural tree you know hasn’t been sprayed with pesticides or green paint, as is the case with many commercial Christmas tree operations.

Pine (or spruce) essential oil. Pine needles on their own will probably not have enough scent, so a few drops of concentrated essence will help give your path salts that pine-y odor that will make them smell like a walk in the forest. Both pine and black spruce essential oils are considered helpful for pain relief and promoting respiratory health. I’ve also seen black spruce oil promoted as helpful for sleep.

Another oil to consider is juniper, a conifer used for its relaxing and muscle-soothing properties. Or you might try frankincense, which is fantastic for reducing inflammation and pain, though the scent is less specifically pine-y.

You can find all of these at reasonable prices online. I’m a huge fan of Vitacost for their excellent selection of oils (and tons of healthy food and household products). They have frequent sales that bring their already low prices down even further, plus I use the free Rakuten browser extension to get up to 15% cash back at Vitacost and tons of other places I shop. You’ll get a $40 bonus just for signing up using this link.

If you just want a little pine oil, you can get a tiny bottle like this. Or for not much more, you can get a larger bottle of pine needle oil and use it for DIY cleaners as well (recipes coming soon). You’ll find options on Amazon as well, but I tend to find better prices when I use the sales at Vitacost.

Spruce, juniper, and frankincense cost a bit more, but a little goes a long way. Here are a number of spruce options to choose from, and here are some frankincense oils from Vitacost and Amazon.

The number of drops you use in a bath salt recipe is really about personal preference. You can use fewer drops for a lighter scent and to get more out of your purchase. You can add more drops for a more intense smell of pine.

Optional: Carrier oil. Highly concentrated essential oils are often diluted in a carrier oil like almond, grapeseed, or jojoba, which can also add moisturizing properties to a bath soak. I generally don’t bother with this step, but you can try and see if you like it.

When I do use carrier oils, my favorite is sesame oil, which was recommended to me by an occupational therapist for its anti-inflammatory properties. But almond oil works perfectly well for this bath salt recipe.

Here’s a selection of carrier oils to consider. Look at several options before choosing, as you can sometimes an organic oil for about the same as conventional.

Muslin bags – You don’t want bits of pine needle floating in your tub, so unlike simple bath salts without whole herbs, you need to package these pine bath salts in a muslin bag to keep from making the tub a mess.

Pine Bath Salt Recipe

Pine bath salts are really easy to make, just adding pine needles to some epsom salts, plus a few drops of essential oil. You can use a little additional oil to help the essential oil disperse through the salts, but I haven’t found it necessary.

You’ll be chopping the pine needles and adding them to the salts, together with essential oil and a carrier oil if you’re using one.

Stir it all together and store it in a jar and you’re done! (More details in the recipe below.)

To use your pine bath salts, fill a small muslin bag and place in the bathtub as it fills. The salts will dissolve and the oils will disperse into the water. The needles will stay in the bag and steep in the hot water, infusing the bath like they would in a cup of tea.

When you’re done with your bath, the needles can be composted and the bag washed and reused.

For gifting, you can give a prefilled bag or a jar containing a larger amount of salts and some empty bags.

Continue to Content

Easy Homemade Pine Bath Salts

Yield: 3 cups

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Active Time: 1 minute

Total Time: 6 minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Estimated Cost: about $1

This easy pine bath salt recipe brings together the pain relieving power of pine with magnesium-rich epsom salts for a relaxing forest-infused bath soak.

Print

Materials

• 2 cups epsom salts
• 1 cup pine needles, finely chopped
• 15-30 drops essential oil (pine, spruce, juniper, or other oil of choice)
• Optional: 2 tablespoons carrier oil like grapeseed, sweet almond, or jojoba

Tools

• Scissors
• Large bowl
• Measuring cup
• Spoon
• Airtight Jar or container
• Muslin bags

Instructions

1. Chop or snip pine needles into small pieces.
2. If using a carrier oil, combine with essential oil in small bowl.
3. Add essential oil (with carrier oil if using) to epsom salts and stir to combine.
4. Transfer to an airtight jar.

Notes

To use, put 1/2 cup in a muslin bag (a 3x4 inch bag like this holds roughly a half cup) and place in the bathtub as it fills. When you're done with your bath, the needles can be composted and the bag washed and reused.

For gifting, you can give a prefilled bag or a jar containing a larger amount of salts and some empty bags.

If you have leftover pine needles, be sure to try out some other creative uses for pine needles!

Enjoy these pain-relieving bath salts! If you try them, leave a comment and let me know what you thought.

Some other fun DIYs to explore:

• Homemade potpourri with foraged materials
• Easy DIY lavender sachets
• Simple DIY sugar scrub

Save this pine bath salt recipe for later!

Susannah

Susannah is a health and environmental writer focusing on gardening, foraging, medicinal plants, and sustainability. Her work has appeared in Mother Earth Living, Ensia, Northern Gardener, Sierra, and on numerous websites. Her first book, Everything Elderberry, released in September 2020 and was a #1 new release in holistic medicine, naturopathy, herb gardening, and other categories. Find out more and grab your copy here.