Tea Baths 101: How to Use All Types of Teas in Your Bath

Baths are an essential part of our self-care and wellness routines. In addition to making you feel like a luxurious, old-fashioned lady swooning in her boudoir, a warm soak can help to increase circulation and relax your muscles, improving muscle tension and pain.

Often known as a “tub tea” or a tea bath, you can add three to five tea bags to your bath, follow our easy recipe for DIY bath tea, or, to reap even more tea benefits, brew a pot of strong tea and add it to your bath water. Read on for the best types of tea to use in your tea bath!

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BATH TEA KIT

Steep yourself in a relaxing, soothing blend of herbs, fruits, and flowers to feel your stresses drift away. Using tea in your bath infuses your bathwater with antioxidants while reducing inflammation and helping balance your skin. Tea baths can also help increase circulation and relax your muscles, improving muscle tension and pain. And your bathroom will smell lovely!

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Are Tea Baths Good for You?

Drinking tea can have many benefits for your skin, but some benefits of tea can also be absorbed topically in your bath. Using tea in your baths such as green tea or an herbal tea bath can help to infuse your bathwater with antioxidants while also reducing inflammation and helping to balance your skin. Warm steam can help with congestion if you’re dealing with a cold, and can help with headaches.

Baths have even been shown to lower blood pressure, which can boost your mood and reduce stress. Trouble sleeping? Taking a warm tea bath before bed can help to raise your body temperature and then allow it to cool, easing you into sleep. And your bathroom will smell great!

Best Types of Tea for Your Bath

Black tea: Black tea helps to reduce inflammation, making it a great tea to help soothe your skin and relax any irritated muscles. The tannins in black tea are also extremely cleansing and help to close pores, making this a great choice for a soak if you deal with any body acne.  This also makes it helpful for reducing itching, making it an awesome choice if you’re dealing with bug bites, irritated skin, or sunburn, because it helps speed up the body’s healing process.

Green tea:  A popular choice for a bath soak, green tea can help reduce muscle pain.  It’s also soothing and softening for the skin, helping to relieve redness.  Because it’s loaded with antioxidants, a green tea soak can also have wonderful anti-aging effects, helping your skin to recover from environmental irritants.

Chamomile:  Often touted as being a relaxing and calming tea, soaking in chamomile tea has similar effects on the skin, meaning that it’s incredibly soothing for irritated and sensitive skin. It helps to reduce redness and is antibacterial, helping to minimize scars and marks. We love this Pink Roses & Chamomile Bath Tea recipe for a relaxing self-care evening.

Peppermint: With a cooling effect on the skin, peppermint tea is naturally invigorating and rejuvenating. It also helps to open up nasal passages, easing any congestion you might be feeling and helping you to feel more revitalized.  It can also help to reduce inflammation, soothing burned and irritated skin. When combined with epsom salts, peppermint tea makes an incredibly detoxifying bath.

Lavender: A go-to for relaxation, lavender tea creates a very calming soak, and, when combined with peppermint tea, can be especially soothing for headaches.  Dried lavender buds are super easy to add to epsom salts for a soak, or to other tea combinations, like black or white tea, if you don’t have lavender tea on hand.

Rose: Super calming, rose tea is great for your bath as it helps to load your skin with antioxidants, which is awesome for helping to tone and nourish your skin. If you’ve ever had a gorgeous rose petal soak then you know the smoothing and calming effect that it can have on your skin.

Calendula: Calendula is a super soothing herb for the skin, often used in balms, which means that it works well in a bath soak.  It’s naturally anti-inflammatory, the petals helping to soothe skin conditions like eczema and dry skin.

Eucalyptus: Pairing well with peppermint tea, eucalyptus tea in the bath can be especially helpful for opening up your nasal passages and easing congestion.  As a bath, it can also be helpful for relieving muscle aches.

Orange Blossoms: With a gently uplifting scent, orange blossom tea makes a great addition to your tub time.  It can help reduce redness and irritation, as well as soften and soothe the skin. The citrus scent is equal parts calming and brightening, pairing well with other citrus teas as well as with green tea.

Linden Flowers: With a bright, sunny scent, linden flower tea can be extremely mood-boosting when used in your bath (or when sipped, for that matter!). Soaking in linden flower tea can help to reduce stress and anxiety, detoxify your body, and help reduce inflammation, meaning that its soothing on your skin.

Thyme: Thyme pairs well with other herbal-y teas, creating a soak that is naturally anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial, meaning that it helps to cleanse the skin, helping to reduce acne and breakouts.

Rosemary: Rosemary tea is loaded with antioxidants, meaning that it has an anti-aging effect on the skin. It also helps to improve circulation which, when combined with a warm bath, can help to soothe sore muscles.

Bath Tea Recipes to Try

Kitchen Sink Bath Tea  

Skin Love Bath Tea

Bliss Tea Bath Bomb

DIY Pink Lemonade Tub Tea from A Life Adjacent

DIY Chai Spice Tub from Curbly

DIY Chocolate Roses Tub Tea from A Life Adjacent 

Rose Scented Homemade Bath Tea from Live Laugh Rowe

Sleepy Time Tub Tea from Keeper of the Home

 

For some extra after-bath pampering, check out our Black Tea Cellulite Fighter recipe!