The bathhouse kits are meant for one-time use because it takes a lot of natural ingredients to achieve the level of aromatherapy.
However, you can get more out of your bathhouse kits by either:
- Reuse: You can steep the entire bathhouse kit as per the instructions for 5 minutes in boiling water (instead of 10) and then rest it and put it inside your fridge in a clean container. The next day you can reuse it and steep it in boiling water for 10 minutes and put it into your bath.
- Create Portions: You can split the bathhouse formulation into two experiences by simply using less ingredients. The Inoki Bathhouse recommends steeping the bathhouse formula in your bathroom for longer than 10 minutes, pressing down on it regularly to extract more of the scent. And then pour it into your bath as per normal. Please note: They only include 1 large tea bag, but you can use any cotton bag that seals tightly from home.
What are all the ingredients and their individual benefits? Where are they sourced?
Skin Benefits from the Garden Bathhouse Formula
- Roses [Egypt]: Dry rose helps refresh your skin by balancing the skin’s pH balance as it contains anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties such as vitamin C.
- Lavender [France]: Lavender tea can help soothe your skin with its cooling and calming benefits. It contains antioxidant properties that can detox the skin and aid in dry skin-related issues.
- Calendula [Egypt]: Calendula helps hydrate your skin with its anti-inflammatory properties and it stimulates the skin’s firmness and elasticity.
- Chamomile [Croatia]: Chamomile helps calm the skin with its anti-inflammatory properties. It also reduces redness and signs of aging and protects the skin from inflammation like sunburns.
- Butterfly Pea Flower [China]: Butterfly Pea Flower helps protect the skin from sun damage as it is rich in polyphenols, which prevents the skin from harmful effects. It also reduces redness and irritation from its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.
- Coconut Milk [Vietnam]: Coconut milk helps restore moisture in the skin as it is loaded with vitamin C. It also improves the appearance of the skin by reducing redness and maintaining the skin’s elasticity.
- Jasmine [China]: Jasmine tea helps balance the skin’s moisture, reduce redness, and slow down the skin aging process with its antioxidant properties.
- Oats [Canada]: Oats help soothe and moisturize the skin, which helps with skin dryness with its antioxidant properties such as vitamin E.
What are some tips for creating the perfect at-home bath experience?
Lighting
- Mood Lighting: Purchase warm mood lights so that you can turn off the florescent light in your bathroom. Use enough light to make you feel like you're in an everlasting sunset, but not enough that it strains your eyes.
- Candles: Light candles throughout your bathroom to create a warm sunset hue. As part of the Inoki Bathhouse kit, they include 6 tealight candles with lavender to sprinkle into it to give it a nice light lavender scent.
Decor
- Fresh Flowers: Buy yourself some beautiful and fresh flowers. You deserve it and it will look fantastic in your bathroom. Support a local flower shop if you can!
- Dry Flowers: It is highly recommended getting dry flowers so you don't have to buy fresh flowers all the time. It will make your bathroom look phenomenal. Note: dry flowers are not meant to be in humid environments, but if you're taking baths once a week, it's not a big deal.
- Plants: Hanging plants such as Boston Fern, Golden Pothos, Maidenhair Fern, String of Nickels, are fantastic and low maintenance.
- Fake Plants: You can use fake plants but real plants are more aesthetic and pleasing to look at. Tip: get your plants from proper plant shops as opposed to supermarkets. The detail is in the quality of the plant roots and soil - if the foundation is good then it will be resilient. Real plants also help clean the air in your home so double win.
Scents
- Do not overdo the scent: Do not overdo the fragrances and essential oils because your tolerance for scents will adjust during bath experience. The Inoki bathhouse's formulations are made with natural plant-based ingredients with sweet scents that continue to release throughout the bath experience as it soaks in the warm waters (it's not overpowering or too subtle).
- Do not combine scents: Do not combine scents from different products when you're in your bathroom. For example: lighting all sorts of scented candles that have disjointed scents. This also includes using scented products (use your products at the very end). Create a relaxing scent and stick with it for the entire soaking experience, it will make the bath experience much more relaxing.
Bath Accessories
- Bath Cushion: Get yourself a bath cushion. It absolutely changed the bath experience. The Inoki's bath formulations will definitely stain your bath cushions into a tea colour. They hope this isn't a deal breaker, but if it is, no hard feelings!
- Bathtub Tray: The bamboo tray will transform your bath experience. Now you can read a book/kindle, enjoy fruits, and drinks hot tea.
- Bath Bowl: Get a bath bowl (you can honestly use anything). It is a functional use of limited water and created a relaxing sensation from the quick water pressure.
- Gua Sha: If you're not familiar with gua sha, it's essentially the practice of using a tool that helps relieve pain and tension. This practice originates from traditional Chinese medicine. You can use the gua sha tool to massage various parts of your body, like the muscles in your back in legs. Massaging your muscles while you're in a hot bath seems like the perfect opportunity to give your muscles some more love.
- Floor Towel: To create and maintain a steamy bathroom, Inoki Bathhouse recommend putting a body towel at the foot of your door. Cold air will typically rush in from that crack and Inoki Bathhouse want to avoid that.
- Facial Bath Towel: Have a small clean towel available in your bath so that you can soak it in warm water and wrap it around your eyes and neck.
Refreshments: Tea & Fruits
- Bring Heat to Your Body with Hot Tea: The Inoki Bathhouse believes that this is a part of traditional Chinese medicinal practices - the belief that adding heat to your body and sweating it out will bring balance back to any internal chaos. As part of the Inoki Bathhouse experience, they include premium traditional whole leaf Chinese tea in the bathhouse kits to help bring you some delicious, aromatic heat.
- Refresh with Fruits: The Inoki Bathhouse believes giving someone or even yourself a fresh bowl of fruits is love - either an act of love or self-love. It's also a great source of vitamins and electrolytes considering how much you'll be sweating in your bath.
Are these organic and chemical free?
Yes, all the ingredients in the Inoki's Garden Bathhouse formula are clean, organic, and chemical-free. They have not sourced all the ingredients for the other formulations yet.
What is the clean up process like?
Cleaning up is easy, but not very enjoyable after a relaxing bath. The Inoki Bathhouse strongly advises cleaning your tub right away. That means draining the water and then use a scrubber to get rid of all the dead skin and residual bath water. You may also want to soak your bath cushion in water and baking soda (the bathhouse kit will stain your cushion). Lastly, cutting the large tea bag open to compost the bathhouse formula and then throwing away the tea bag into the trash.
What is the shelf life of your products
Although the Inoki Bathhouse's ingredients have a shelf life of up to 6 months, they create their batches fresh and recommend using it as soon as possible (up to 2 months) to take advantage of the scents.
How should I store your products?
Tea should always be stored away from natural sunlight!
Will tea stain my bathtub?
Tea is a natural colouring agent, so the Inoki Bathhouse wants to preface with this fact first. Unlike bath bombs, there are zero artificial colours in their bath formulations.
The Inoki Bathhouse nor any of their customers, have had any staining issues with the bathtub from their formulations. The Inoki Bathhouse personally used their bathhouse formulation over dozens of times and sometimes forgot to drain their bathtub for hours. The only staining that they experienced is with their bath cushion (They find it charming because it adds character).
The reason why it shouldn't stain your bathtub is because the Inoki Bathhouse's tubs are made with resilient materials that are not porous. However, if you have an old bathtub that is peeling or degrading, they cannot guarantee that it won't stain it.
Recommendations:
- The Inoki Bathhouse recommends doing a small stain test with a bit of formulation and boiling water and seeing if anything happens after an hour or two.
- A solution to mitigate risk is to remove all the butterfly pea flowers because that emits the most amount of colour.
How does this affect my pH level?
Short answer is no, it shouldn't.; however, things can always happen to please review the below carefully.
In order to answer the Inoki Bathhouse had to do a lot of research into how pH levels can be disrupted during baths.
Here are the findings:
- A "normal" vaginal pH level is between 4 - 4.5 (however this also depends on age)
- Below 7 = Acidic - vaginal pH thrives in an acidic environment
- Above 7 = Alkaline - this can begin to disrupt the healthy bacteria in our vaginal ecosystem
- Adding soap, salts, fragrances, and oils can cause irritation
- The quality of your local bath water mixed with added ingredients like soap (which can have a pH level of 9+) can lead to infections
- It is a safer bet to use natural ingredients that don't have chemicals that can cause an imbalance in your vaginal ecosystem
- There have been recorded instances of people who have soaked in salt baths, bath bombs, or bubble baths who have contracted infections (it's a small percentage, but it has happened)
About Inoki Bathhouse formulations:
- The Inoki Bathhouse do not have a bath bomb product - there are no acids, baking sodas, artificial colours, fragrances, soaps, complex ingredients, or chemicals in their products
- All the Inoki Bathhouse's ingredients are organic (most of them are certified USDA Organic)
- It takes 1 minute in boiling water to kill bacteria and pathogens but as part of the instructions for the bath experience the Inoki Bathhouse ask you to put the formulation in boiling water for 8-10 minutes - this is not only to extract its scent but to eliminate any germs, bacteria, or pathogens
- The Inoki Bathhouse did an at-home pH test and the result was 4.67 (after waiting a few minutes)
Can people with sensitive skin use this?
Yes, there are no irritants, colours, or perfumes in this formula. Of course, make sure that you're not allergic to anything but Inoki Bathhouse has had customers with extremely sensitive skin (including eczema) use this and they loved it. They stayed in the bath for around 45 minutes to 1 hour.