You can save money and at the same time know exactly what your bath and beauty products contain by making your own with simple recipes. Mason jars filled with home-made salts or homemade soaps make an excellent holiday gift. Place a small toy inside for the child or maybe a special something for an adult in a handmade bar of soap. Be creative and HAVE FUN!

Candy Cane Bath Salts

Ingredients:
3 cups of Epsom salts
3 Teaspoons of Sweet Almond Oil
9 drops of Peppermint Essential Oil
1 drop of red food coloring ( more if you like)
1 drop of green food coloring

To decorate:
Turn lids or cork seals red, green and white. Use Christmas ribbon and several gift tags shaped like candy canes or shape of your choice OR several candy canes (small ones).

To make the salts separate each of the three cups of salts into three bowls. Separate each teaspoon of almond oil into three bowls. Into one bowl of almond oil add the drop of red food coloring, in to the second add the green. Into each of the three bowls of oil add three drops of peppermint oil. Mix each bowl well. After mixing pour each of the bowls of oils and coloring into one of the bowls of salt. This will leave you with a bowl of green a bowl of red and a bowl of white scented salts. Let sit for a few hours covered. To create the candy cane effect layer layers of each color, a layer of red, a layer of green, a layer of white, over and over until you fill the jar.

Candy Cane Swirl

You will need:
½ lb. MP  opaque powder base
1 tsp. Stearic acid
Red food coloring
Candy Cane fragrance oil
candy cane cookie cutters
Wax paper-lined pan or tray

in** you could also use the Wilton mini cake pan candy cane mold **
Melt the MP base and stearic acid separately. Combine them when they are both liquefied. Whisk well. Add the fragrance oil and pour it into a wax paper-lined pan or tray. Take a bit of red coloring (just a bit on the tip of the toothpick) and swirl into the soap until it is marbleized. When it is firm enough, take a cookie cutter and cut out candy cane shapes. These are great for Christmas!!!

Citronella Soap  – A Camper’s Bestfriend!

1 cup grated Castile soap
1/2 cup water
10 drops citronella essential oil
5 drops eucalyptus essential oil
1 T. dried, crushed pennyroyal leaves

Mix the ingredients into the melted soap/water mixture. With an electric mixer, whip the soap until it has doubled in volume. Spoon the soap into the prepared molds, pushing it into the molds as best you can (the beating action cools the mix, so work quickly). If the mixture has cooled off and thickened so much you can’t put it into the molds, hand mold the soap into large balls or into slivers for single use while camping.

Cookie Cutter Soaps

Melt and Pour soap base (opaque)
Scent (optional)
Color (must be liquid, like gels)
Cookie sheet (must have at least a 1/2 in. edge on it)
Knife (to swirl your colors!)
Cookie cutters of your choice

Meltdown the soap base and scent. You can give the main base color if you wish or leave it white. Pour the base on the cookie sheet and add colors and swirl them all over – be creative! When this dries, pop the block of soap out of the cookie sheet. Use cookie cutters to cut up the soap.
There are lots of different things you can do with this… Some ideas: Christmas Soap: Swirl red & green into white and use cookie cutters Candy Cane Soap: Swirl red into white with peppermint scent and candy cane cutters. Easter/Spring: Swirl multiple pastels and find some fun cookie cutters. 4th of July: Patriotic white soap with a beautiful red & blue swirl (find a nice star cutter!)

Chocolate Cookie Soap

You will need:
1 lb. Opaque MP
1 TB. Cocoa butter
Cocoa powder for colorant (or brown dye)
1 TB. Chocolate Fragrance oil
Round or cookie molds

Melt the MP soap. Remove from heat and slowly stir in the cocoa butter and enough cocoa powder to make it a pale brown or tan. Add fragrance oil. Reserve enough of the soap to make a darker brown color. Pour the lighter shade of brown soap into round/cookie molds. Add more cocoa powder to the reserved batch of MP base to make a darker brown. Marble into the pale brown soap.

Custom – Scented Bath Salts

1 cup Epsom salt
1 cup of sea salt
2 cups baking soda
Essential oil(s)
10 drops food coloring (optional)

Combine the first 3 ingredients in a large bowl, then add 4 teaspoons of essential oil in any fragrance or combination. Stir. You may also tint the bath salts if you so desire by adding 10 drops of food coloring to the bowl after you add the essential oils. Stir again. Store bath salts in a tightly capped container for 2 to 3 days before using. You can also divide the bath salts equally between 2 large bowls, tint them different colors, and then carefully pour them into a clear container, making what appears to be “sand art”. Or tint one red, and scent both containers with peppermint oil, then layer it in a clear container and wrap with red ribbon. This “peppermint stick” makes a great Christmas gift!

Custom – Scented Shower Gel

1/2 cup unscented shampoo
1/4 cup water
3/4 tsp. salt
15 drops fragrance oil
Food coloring (optional)

Pour shampoo into a bowl and add the water. Stir until it’s well mixed. Add the salt, fragrance oil and food coloring. Suggestions for scents: kiwi extract, raspberry extract, strawberry extract, coconut extract, vanilla extract, any scent you can imagine… (I personally like the pine mix… it smells so good!)

FRUITCAKE SOAP

3 – 4oz. Glycerine Soaps (12 oz)
Food Color
Fragrance Oils (Tangerine Oil, Cherry Oil, Pineapple Oil, Lime Oil, Gingerbread Oil and Cinnamon Oil)
You can use rectangular soap molds, small loaf pans or small bundt pans.
Melt 4 ounces of soap and pour it into 4 square or rectangular soap molds. Immediately add the following in this order:
Mold 1:
3 drops red food color and 5 drops Cherry fragrance oil
Mold 2:
2 drops red, 1 drop yellow food color and 5 drops Tangerine fragrance oil
Mold 3:
3 drops yellow food color and 5 drops Pineapple fragrance oil
Mold 4:
3 drops green food color and 5 drops Lime fragrance oil
Allow the 4 soap to set completely. Remove them from the molds and cube. Divide the colored cubes into soap molds.
If you are using pans spray with a very light coat of vegetable spray and wipe out with a paper towel. Melt remaining soap, when melted stir in 1/4 teaspoon
Gingerbread fragrance oil and 5 drops Cinnamon fragrance oil. Add 5 drops of caramel food color or brown paste food color just to create a ’fruitcake’ color.
Pour soap slowly into molds over the cubes. Set for at least three hours. Just as the soap is starting to set stir them to spread the cubes around. Unmold. If you have trouble removing them from the pans, use a hairdryer to heat the molds slightly.