Spa Day

Recently I've been considering the fact that I have 3 birthdays to prepare for in November (1 present has to be mailed to Hawaii) and then Christmas for my friends and family. So far, I've made it as far as road testing possible birthday presents. So without further ado: the perfect collection of materials for a fantastic spa day.

The first possible addition to the basket is a kitchen type hand scrub. It was super easy to make, adds great moisture to your hands, but isn't super greasy. It was simple to make and all the ingredients are already in your kitchen (well at least most of them are).

To make the hand scrub you'll need 1 1/2 cups of sugar, 1/3 cup of salt (the recipe said kosher salt, but I used canning salt because it was what I had), 1 cup olive oil and as much lemon extract as you want to make it smell good. Mix the ingredients together and spoon into decorative jars and voila! This set of measurements makes 1 pint.

The jar on the left is the hand scrub. The jar on the right is the chocolate caramel bath salts.

The second addition is fabulous bath salts. For this recipe, mix a cup of Epsom Salts with a tablespoon of baking soda and whatever flavorings you want, I used chocolate and caramel (found in the baking aisle of my local Wal-Mart). They smelled fantastic, though I haven't had a chance to use them yet. A helpful hint with this one: less is more with extracts. I used a couple of drops of caramel and a drop of chocolate because it was stronger and the smell filled the house. Also, make sure you mix well. Where you drop the extracts in will clump, but just keep mixing and it will even out nicely. It makes about 1 half-pint, but you can get cool tins from Michael's, Hobby Lobby or even Wal-Mart. I used a decorative Ball jar that is a half-pint.

My third edition will be a bar of tea soap. I'm still working out all the kinks with this one, so I'll let you know how it goes later!

Other options aka on my list of things to try: lip balm, foot cream, hot/cold eye mask and maybe a bath bomb.