It happens this same time every year…the weather starts to turn colder and my mind turns to oatmeal. Well my MIND doesn’t turn to oatmeal….my mind TURNS to oatmeal! lol. Oh well….you know what I mean! :-)
I love oatmeal for breakfast on cold mornings! This morning I made a bowl and added some of the Caramel Vanilla Creamer I made earlier this week and threw in a handful of roasted almonds. mmm.mmm.mmm.
Anyway….I’m getting side-tracked. As I was eating my oatmeal I got to thinking about how great oatmeal is!
It’s delicious to EAT and a LIFESAVER for those of us who eat gluten-free, but it’s ALSO great for your SKIN! I have soaked all my kids in an oatmeal bath at one time or another when they were little. (Can you say chicken pox?)
Did you know….?
- Oatmeal has anti-inflammatory properties and is perfect for most skin types, even the most sensitive skin.
- Oatmeal contains saponins, a cleansing agent, and can therefore be used as a mild soap.
- Oatmeal is moisturizing and helps remove dead skin cells.
- Oatmeal can help treat acne, eczema, rosacea and rashes.
- Oatmeal can help relieve symptoms of aging skin.
I recently saw an idea for making Herbal Bath and Shower Bags at Tipnut.com and couldn’t wait to try making my own version using oatmeal. I love how oatmeal makes your skin feel after soaking in it, but it’s not always practical (or economical) to fill up the bathtub to get those benefits.
That’s where the BAG comes in. Just fill a small cloth bag with oatmeal, a little grated soap, and a few drops of your favorite essential oils and you have the benefits of an oatmeal bath that you can take into the shower with you! Plus, the cloth from the bag will provide a light scrubbing action to help clean and exfoliate your skin.
How To Make An Oatmeal Shower Bag:
You can make drawstring pouches out of cheesecloth, organza, muslin, or whatever you have on hand. Or you can “CHEAT” like I did and pick up some of these little organza favor bags I found in the wedding/cake decorating section at Walmart. (I think it was around $2.00 for 12.) These turned out to be the perfect size! Just big enough to hold between 1/4 to 1/2 cup of the mix.
To make the oatmeal mix: add 2 cups of rolled oats, approximately 1/2 bar of grated soap (I happened to have some Lavender soap on hand), and 5 – 10 drops of essential oil to a bowl and mix together with a spoon. You could also add dried herbs if you like.
Spoon the oatmeal mixture into the bags until they are about 3/4′s full, then simply pull the drawstring tight and tie a double knot. This ended up making about 8 bags (only 6 are pictured). Store the bags in an airtight container until ready to use.
I liked the feel of this stuff so much I decided to keep one in a little cup by the kitchen sink! Much nicer on my hands than all the dish soap I’m constantly washing with. :-)
After use, you can hang them to dry on a hook in the shower or bathroom, or, when they have lost their “oomph”, empty the pouches, rinse them out, allow to dry and then refill and reuse.
Come to think of it….these would be great to throw into a FOOT bath as well. What do you think???
You make your little bags out of muslims??? ;-)
^^Tee hee!!
Oh Yikes! lol! Thanks for the heads up on the typo. sheesh. That’s embarrassing. ;-)
ROFL! That’s great! There is a lot of fabric in those burkas……..;D
Would these work just as well without the essential oils? I have rosacea and the oils would irritate my skin. I wonder if I could make these just with the oatmeal and a cetaphil cleansing bar. Thanks for the idea! I LOVE trying things I find in your website…thanks for all your hardwork!
Definitely! :-) An oatmeal and cetaphil bar sounds great! You’re welcome. :-)
So cute and simple! Another handmade beauty item I can add to my sister’s birthday box being mailed next week. Double Yay, as I still have some of the lovely lavender bags leftover from her wedding to use like the ones featured above. We both love everything lavender, so this will be appreciated by both of us. Thanks!
I love this idea!
Im loving my homemade sugar scrub so ill try adding the oatmeal to my shower too,great idea!
How funny, a post about oatmeal as I sit here eating my morning oatmeal and loving it. I was just thinking yesterday that if I had a blog that I would blog about oatmeal. Love it!!!
Thanks, Jillee! I just found my next items to make for our food and craft swapping event!
Awesome!!!
Love this idea. When my son had a frightening allergic reaction to DEET, our wonderful, elderly pediatrician told me to give him benedryl, but also immediately run a tepid bath with a tied sock full of oatmeal under the tap — the amount of immediate relief it gave to the little fella was amazing. I love oatmeal! Thanks for the tip — I’ll have to try it! Love you stuff, btw!
Jillee what do you use to grate your soap? I love the fine texture!
I just used the small holes on my hand grater. It helps if the bar of soap is really hard.
I use one of those hand cranking shreaders like they use in Italian restaurants, it works well and no scrapping the fingers!
This would be such a cute gift idea too! Just mix up a batch, put it in a mason jar and attach a tag and muslin bag! I might have to do that for Christmas this year!
What a great idea!! Thanks. :o)
Just made a few. Now I’m looking forward to a bit of pampering tonight.
These look awesome!! Now I am gonna have to get some oatmeal. They will be the perfect addition to my homemade Christmas baskets this year. Thank you!
Hey, Jen K.!
I want to do homemade Christmas baskets this year, but am not very creative on my own (I like to think the creative part of my brain got passed down to my beautiful, artistic children…). Would you mind sharing what else you put in your baskets?
Thanks,
Emily S.
This may be a silly question but why this soap…and do you need the essential oil? I only have tea tree and I don’t think that would be a nice combo.
I just used the soap I happened to have on hand. You can definitely do it without the essentials oils.
For some reason I can’t use oatmeal in my bath, it leaves me all dry and itchy :( This looks lovely though!
Thanks for this, Jillee! Sounds like a wonderful alternative to filling the tub with oatmeal. As a matter of fact, a couple of years ago, I found some oatmeal bath soak, made specifically for soaking in the tub or just your feet. I gave it a try and fell in love with it that winter, because my skin was so dry. But, now that I know I can make it myself, I will be doing it this way, for sure! I’m also going to try adding a little baking soda instead of grated soap to make a shampoo pouch. What do you think?
I make little bags with cheese cloth for my oatmeal bags. Works great. I love using mine in the bath tub. I never thought of using them at the sink, but it makes sense. My hands get so dry this time of year.
An oatmeal bath works great for diaper rashes. When my babies have gotten a bad diaper rash I have used oatmeal in a section of old nylons, just knot an end fill up with oatmeal and knot the other end. I have just used straight oatmeal for that, but I might have to make some for me with soap and oil!
I had to grate soap tonight and found a great trick. I decided to use our round cheese grated. I cut a chunk off the bar and churned away. It was super fast and it grated it very fine. My grater looks like the ones at an Italian restaurant. They are made for parm. & other hard cheeses. Just thought I would share.
Oh my goodness! I think I may have one of those round graters somewhere that I don’t use, but couldn’t get rid of. Now I have to see if I can find it! Thanks for the super cool idea!!!
I came here to ask how you put oatmeal in the bath without clogging the pipes because this question has plagued me for years. Thank you to all the people who explained that you put it in a sock or nylons or something because I WAS SOOOO CONFUSED!!!! Finally I get to take an oatmeal bath when my allergies act up!
Brigitte, another thing you can try which allows you to get the maximum benefits of the oatmeal- grind up the oatmeal in a clean coffee grinder, and use that in your bath, you only need 1 Tbsp to do the trick and in a tub of bath water, it will almost completely dissolve and leave your skin so smooth and soft :) good luck with it! ;)
I love this idea. Two years ago I made homemade sugar scrubs and bath salts in gift baskets for the lovely ladies in our family. I’ve gotten hints for a repeat this year. This gives me another cool idea to include in their Pampered Gift Baskets this Christmas. Thanks so much!
OK, this may seem like a silly question, but I’ve never used oatmeal for bathing… How long before it looses it’s “oomph”. Won’t the oatmeal “go bad” after it is wet and left to dry? Thanks.
I think what she means by “loosing it’s oomph” is, when all the soap dissolves and doesn’t get sudsy anymore. But, your question about the oatmeal “going bad” isn’t a bad one. I know that in wheat-based products (esp. whole-grain flour) it’s important to store them in the freezer because the part that goes bad is the fat in it. Oats have a high content of lipids, but dry storage isn’t a problem like it is with wheat, so I’m not sure how getting it wet and using with soap would effect the expiration of the product.
These are great, I used them many many years ago on my kids in the bath as they both had very bad eczema. I’d only use the oats though in a cheese cloth wound tight and dangle it in the bath, really soothed their skin. I had forgotten about how good oats were for the inside and out, thank you Jilly, I think I’ll be nipping out for a bag and will have a pampering bath later :o)
Ooops, so sorry Jillee, not Jilly!! :o/
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I have just recently fallen in love with pinterest, but after stumbling upon your website and blog – I just might have found my NEW love. You are awesome and I LOVE your “one good things”! THANK YOU!!
SO glad people were laughing about the typo and not taking offense.
Here’s a thought. I love those Dove face pillows but hate the price.
I combined a 2 of your ideas the oatmeal shower bag and reusable make up remover squares.
I make little pockets from flannel like yours, but I leave an end open and an extra long piece of fabric on one end as a flap to tuck inside. I fill with 1/2 tsp of each: organic coconut oil, oatmeal & shredded Dove. When each is spent I wash with laundry (like your makeup cloths) and then refill. I make a stack to keep them handy. I cannot wear makeup of any kind because it “melts off” my face and becomes a mess. So I cannot attest to your make up remover, but for a face cleanser/moisturizer this works. I keep hoping that a makeup I can wear will be invented– because I could use it. Maybe by the time I am 60–and then I’ll wear it and look 20 years younger. Let me know if you want details about making my “pillow”
I would also be concerned about the oatmeal going bad as well. I would think for single-use these would be ok, but I wouldn’t save and reuse (who wants to wipe day old oatmeal on their skin)?
I have very dry itchy skin in the winter and these sound perfect! I made a batch of the bags tonight and was just wondering about how long each one lasts?
If you don’t use it, it should last for a couple months, Bren. This idea is so simple, yet great for gifts!
I’ve been looking for a natural oatmeal bath for my son’s eczema with this cold weather that is upon us. I found a recipe for an oil to apply to his skin using lavender, geranium & tea tree oils mixed with a carrier oil. I think I’m going to try making this as a bath bag using the lavender soap and instead of lavender EO, use geranium and tea tree.
Lisa^^ could you post the link that you found for the eczema oil recipe? I have bad eczema and at this point willing to try anything.oatmeal baths help but only temporary.but I will be trying these oatmeal bags.such a neat idea Jillee!!
Hi Jessica,
I saw your comment and saw that you said you have bad eczema and am looking for something to help. Well, this recipe may not cure it completely, but will help improve it. Go to http://www.asonomagardens.com and there is a recipe for eczema lotion, there. I hope this is helpful info!
I’m going to make this right now for a friend for Christmas!
Would this be ok for someone who is celiac?
like the new look and the bag idea is terrific!
I just grind oatmeal up to a flour texture and put a scoop into my bath. Nondrying & very soothing. The bags are a great idea for the shower – will have to try.
Hey Jillee, I just came across this article as I’m about to make a link collection of recipes with oatmeal and I wanted to include this recipe. But I noticed that the info about oatmeal is my text from this article: http://hildablue.com/2011/11/27/ode-to-oats-5-ways-to-benefit-from-oatmeal-in-skin-care/ – even with the typo at the end… Do you think you could add a backlink to my post, as you use my exact formulation? I don’t know if you took the text from there or somewhere else (I found a couple of others who has taken it as well) but it would be greatly appreciated :)
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