Just a heads up for you all, darlings: when you next want to take a ritual bath in preparation for some ritual, event, or other, feel free to try any of the following:
- Pray over the water.
- Mix in a powder, salt, gel, or some other dry or semi-dry ingredient that is water soluble.
- Mix in holy water, a tincture or tisane or hydrosol of some herb, or some other liquid.
- Mix in consecrated oil, ritual soap, or body wash.
Do not:
- Mix in herbs or crushed dry petals.
Because let me tell you, having to comb out tiny flecks of rose petals from your pubes and ruin the lovely scent of sandalwood in the air with the odors of Draino after the bath is not a pleasant experience.
The Digital Ambler 
Heh. Yeah, the medieval methodology of dumping the bath-tub (after five or six people had washed in it) into the garden or the midden, doesn’t really work with modern indoor plumbing. :-)
Cloth teabags, my friend.
That makes a shocking amount of sense. Or a clean thin sock, or something.
The More You Know shooting star
Cheesecloth?
Anything that holds herbs or loose ingredients together: a t-shirt, thin sock, reusable cloth bags or tea sachets, cheesecloth (provided it’s fine enough), a tea ball or mesh strainer (thanks Kalagni!), pretty much anything. Hell, I could just boil together the water and herbs separately first, strain out the materia, and just throw the water into the tub. That works just as well, and gives the tub a bit of a live kick to it.
Well, this is for “lessons learned the hard way”, to be sure.
Actually, that last bit is what I do. I brew them as a tea on the stove first; it allows the ingredients to steep for a while a makes for a richer bath. :)
Amen
Yeah, I just tie up the herbs in a facecloth, or if they’re loose, just put down a mesh drain guard.
This is kind of right up there with the “make sure your home is adequately ventilated before lighting twelve candles, two oil lamps, a stick of incense, and a charcoal brazer … lest you set off the smoke alarm and botch your ritual” issues I’ve been having in the new apartment.
But now we know better, and the world is better off. Or at least our senses of tranquility and stability are.
Thank you for being the person in my life who discovers these things. :) What has been mentally pictured cannot be unpictured…
that’s why I only add a pinch of finely ground herbs to my bath salts.
Never tried crushed herbs in a ritual bath. I am sure they really make a difference, though. I usually drop some essentials oils in the water … they add a great aroma!