The Christmas challenge. Beautiful bath products.

This week I went on from soap to other bath products. My trip to Lush and snooping at labels and prices led me to the website that also contained glorious ideas and ingredients.
Then I looked on Pinterest and followed some DIY Lush links. Oh my goodness you can make so many very similar things so easily!

I love things that smell beautiful and bath and body products generally! Mum gave me some money at Christmas so I invested in some essential oils that I know I love and have a good effect on me. These are Rose, Geranium, Patchouli and Ylang Ylang.
These are all relaxing, nurturing, calming... help me sleep etc. You have to find the scents that work for you. You probably already know what you love. It is interesting checking into the properties of each of them.  So I invested in these.

 I made gifts for myself and for the present cupboard. The idea is I will build up a theme of spa/beauty gifts and give little kits. I need to be watching out for suitable containers or little baskets.
Also hopefully this year we will make over our bathroom. So I have a new bathroom glory box and I am putting away some lovely things to bring out when it is done. I have candles, towels, pretty soaps... now I will add some jars of bath soak etc to this collection.

The first thing I made was bath bags that I have made many times before.  They are just squares of muslin filled with powdered milk and fine oatmeal. You can also add almond meal to this which is gorgeous but I didn't as this makes them a bit expensive. I added a drop of each of my oils to them.

In the bath they release the softening milk, oatmeal and scent. Then they become kind of soft and mushy and you rub the bag on your skin and it very gently exfoliates. They feel beautiful. I wash my face with these and can get two baths out of each one.  They are so soothing.  Every time  I make them I think I will make a years supply then I consider the volume! So they are more a treat.

The ones for me have gone into big jars. You want to seal in the scent and not lose it.

The ones for gifts I packaged into cellophane bags...

I used more of my dried rose buds to decorate them.  This gave me a little pile to stash away in the gift cupboard. 

Then I made a bath soak you can keep in a jar and scoop into the bath. I made this with the same scents, powdered milk and epsom salts.  I packed some up to go into my spa gifts.

In op shops I always watch out for pretty containers and had several cut glass lidded jars to use.  The scoops are baby formula scoops I have been saving up knowing they are just lovely for something!

I would say this is very soothing, softening, calming...  Epsom Salts are really lovely to soak in. Good spas all over the world use this as a detoxifying soak and it is so easy to do at home. Your skin feels lovely.

Then I made a fine rose and sugar scrub. This turned out really well. It works wonderfully. I don't get on with coarse scrubs as they are scratchy.  Dark brown soft sugar with honey is my usual scrub.

I saved rose petals all summer.  I blended these with about equal castor sugar. That is super fine sugar.   

The blending make it even finer. Then I added a drizzle of almond oil. Not enough to make it wet but it just softened it further.

This was kind of an experiment.  I have used it on my face everyday. I just love it.  Now it has occurred to me to try it with fresh roses as they would have oils in them... but it might not keep so long.  I will let you know on that.

I truly think exfoliating is the best thing you can do. Then your moisturiser just soaks in so much better and you look fresher.  This worked so well I basically can't make enough of it!  I am packaging it up the same in cellphone bags. 

So that is my week of gift making.  It was really good fun and my bath has been bliss!

I have a list of other things to make because I found recipes I really want to try. These include hair masks, powder and a Lush copy of a cleaner bar.   I ordered white clay online for one of these so have to wait until it arrives!

Most of the ingredients are simple ones. The most beautiful body power Lush sell feels like silk. It's main ingredient is cornflour. That is on my list to make and I have powder puffs I made last year!

How is your gift making going? What are you working on? 

It is really amazing how week by week the gift cupboard begins to refill!  And as a bonus we get some lovely things for ourselves and our homes as well.

It has been really hot here but today it has cooled down and there is a lovely breeze. I have every door and window wide open letting it flow through the whole house.  And we have been picking peaches! 

xxx