The three-product bath
On the small Saturday morning ritual I keep — a long warm bath with three carefully chosen products — and the small differences each makes.
Saturday mornings, for the last several years, have included a long bath. Not a quick wash. A bath that lasts forty-five minutes or so, with the lights low, the window open, and three small specific products that have, after years of experimentation, earned their place by the side of the tub.
The first is a small handful of Epsom salts — about three tablespoons — that I dissolve in the running water as the bath fills. The magnesium in the salts is genuinely absorbed through the skin in measurable amounts, and the body, after forty-five minutes of soaking, has had a small useful mineral input that the rest of the week does not provide. The cost of the salts is about four euros for a large bag that lasts most of a year.
The other two products
The second is two drops of lavender essential oil added once the bath has filled. Two drops is the right number — any more and the smell becomes overpowering. The third is a small amount of unrefined coconut oil, about a tablespoon, that I rub into the elbows and the heels before stepping into the bath. The hot water softens the skin around the oil, and the oil, over the forty-five minutes, slowly absorbs.
That is the whole ritual. Three products, none of which costs more than a few euros, applied with intention rather than in volume. The bath that results is more deeply restorative than any spa bath I have paid for, and the cost is the cost of the bag of salts every six months and the small bottle of lavender oil once a year. Everything else is already in the kitchen.