If you have been following me for a while, you probably know I like to experiment with different ways of putting ingredients together and using them.

Shower shakers came along as a natural course of ‘playing around’ with a few ideas.

A shower shaker is basically bath salts for folks who don’t have a tub (count me in that group). It’s also a version of body scrub that can be put together numerous ways. There’s a link to an introductory shower shaker post at the the bottom of this article.

The Kelp and Matcha Mix

Today’s shower shaker is a mixture of the following ingredients

Pink Himalayan Salt
Sea Salt
Powdered Skimmed Milk
Matcha Green Tea Powder
Ground Kelp (Check how to make your own right here)

Amounts?

I eyeballed the amounts in this batch, but here’s a rough breakdown

Salts: 85%
Milk Powder: 12%
Botanicals: 3%

TIP: Unless you want to be able to recreate your batch, it’s OK to eyeball the amounts in a shower shaker.

Above is a shot of the added matcha tea powder and ground kelp before I stirred it into the mixture.

Does that seems like a super teensy amount of botanicals?

Here’s why: these were added mostly to color the mixture that pretty shade of green you see pictured at the top, but there are other reasons to keep the amount of botanicals at a minimum in products of this nature.

As we all know, bath products are rinsed down the drain after use, and as we may sometimes forget, many botanicals take a while to break down completely - even when they start as a fine powder. In short, too many botanicals can make your pipes (and local plumber) very unhappy.

What? No Butter?

I realise the previous shower shaker post (link below) mentioned using grated cocoa butter (which is gorgeous) and this batch has no fats at all.

One of the advantages of shower shakers is that they can really be put together successfully any number of ways.

Admittedly, grating cocoa butter is a bit of a project (which is why I always grate a fair amount at a time and then store it in the cooler until needed). If you don’t happen to have time to grate cocoa butter (I didn’t), there is a workaround.

Apply a light layer of sweet almond oil, apricot kernel oil or your favorite oil after stepping into the shower and before using the shower shaker. There is ‘double application’ situation using this workaround, but I see this as extra pampering time and the result is silky soft exfoliated skin.

Could you add grated cocoa butter to this batch? Absolutely!

Could you use other botanicals? Yes, indeed!

Could you use coconut milk powder to make a vegan version? For sure!

This is why I love shower shakers – they’re so versatile and the options are endless.

Do Tell

Have you made and used a shower shaker? Which botanicals did you use? Did you add grated cocoa butter or did you try the oil application? Please share in a comment below!

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