I moved into the city a few years ago and haven’t taken a bath since! The thing is, it’s the first time I’ve lived in a condo and since I don’t have control of the water pipes, it’s the first time in 10 years that I haven’t been able to add a whole house water filter to filter out toxins, like chlorine (or chloramines), fluoride, aluminum, hormone-disrupting chemicals and other toxic byproducts.
I knew a lot about water because I had spent time researching and writing for a prominent water scientist. I worked with him to write articles, like this one, that talks about the state of the US water supply.
Instead, I’ve taken short, fast, cool showers (good for the California drought anyway!).
I used to love taking baths and I was lamenting that to Dr. Judy Mikovits, the 35-year veteran scientist who knows her stuff about natural health (the one I interviewed about vaccines on my Hay House Radio show). Dr. Judy gave me a great solution: Borax.
Remember borax? It’s not the same as boric acid. Borax is a naturally occurring mineral, sodium borate, that has been mined and dried. Our ancestors used it for a whole host of things:
- Getting rid of pests (namely fleas and ticks) – I’ve used this successfully with fleas in the past.
- Doing laundry – 1/2 cup borax in the wash cycle, along with regular detergent, makes a great alternative to color-safe bleach (removes stains). It also deodorizes laundry and naturally softens hard water. You can also use a little borax to soak delicates in the sink (1/4 cup). Dr. Judy recommends using borax for laundry!
- Cleaning – 1/4 cup borax in your toilet bowl makes a great cleaner. Or sprinkle some of the powder on a wet sponge to clean and scour surfaces. You can also clean your dishwasher by putting 1/4 cup borax in the bottom of the dishwasher before running it (gets rid of detergent residue and hard water stains).
- Natural herbicide for gardens.
How Does Borax Help With Bath Water?
Studies have shown that borax:
- Can protect your body from fluoride.
- Can protect the body from inflammation and has helped arthritis.
- Can help protect the body from heavy metals and act as a chelator.
- Helps to stabilize other minerals, like calcium (helps inhibit over-calcification), magnesium, silicon, and copper.
- Can improve memory and attention.
- Has anti-fungal and antiviral properties.
Borax in Your Bath
- Add 2 tablespoons or up to 1/4 cup to your warm bath water and allow the borax to dissolve in water.
- I also like to add 1 cup magnesium flakes (some people use Epsom salts instead of magnesium flakes, which is more cost-effective but may cause a reaction in some people with sulfur issues).
- Add 10 drops of your favorite essential oil, like lavender or geranium.
- Consider other additions based on your health goals, like Himalayan salt (for added minerals) or Bentonite clay (heavy metal chelation).
**While vitamin C has been known to reduce the harmful effects of chlorine and chloramines, I do not recommend using ascorbic acid and prefer Wholefood Vitamin C. It only takes about 1 teaspoon, if this is something you want to do.
I may just enjoy taking baths again!
How about you? What do you do to ensure safe bath water? What about drinking water, do you use a filter?
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