Sunday sinusitis: a break from baking

Regular readers know that I have a tendency towards sinusitis - for me it causes a lot of head pain and means my balance is even worse than ever, but otherwise it's not too debilitating. I use menthol crystals as an inhalation but for some reason we seem to have run out/ lost them in the move. 

A lot of Googling and some pinning later I found out that Vicks (of the chest rub) used to make shower discs, that you put on the base of the shower and dissolved in the heat releasing essential oils as they did so. However, they were either an American thing or are long since discontinued - much like our beloved Wrights vaporiser, the only thing known to shift coughs and colds in our house when we were growing up. A few years back I think Lush made a similar product, but that too has been discontinued. 

So, I decided to make my own. I based it on this recipe, but found I needed to change up some of the quantities, hence this post. 

Sinusitis shower steamers

1 cup of baking soda - you get this in the cleaning aisle (I found it for £1 in Savers)
1/3 cup of water
30 drops Rosemary essential oil*
30 drops Eucalyptus essential oil*
30 drops Lavender essential oil*

Cheap fairy cake cases
Fairy cake/ jam tart type tin

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees
In a bowl you don't use for cake baking (the essential oils linger a bit even after washing) mix up the water and the baking soda until you get almost a gel. Add the water tablespoon by tablespoon - you need it to set, so the mixture shouldn't be too wet. 

To the wet mixture add the essential oils and mix in
Line your cake tin with fairy cake cases, and spoon the mixture in
Cook for 20 minutes
When you take them out and they're still warm, add a couple of extra drops of each oil to each 'cake'
Remove each cake from the tin before they're completely cool, and when they are cold store them in an airtight jar in the bathroom.

You'll need to peel off the paper before you use them, but you should get a good hit of the oils in the shower. 

*Just to note that there are contraindications with the use of essential oils and certain health conditions - this site here lists some of the most common. Just because I'm using them without issue, doesn't mean you can, check with your GP if you do have a pre-existing health condition and you want to try these.