Handmade Christmas Gifts: Sugar Scrubs

It’s that time of the year when I’m racking my brain trying to think of gift ideas for the person who has everything. Which got the creative juices flowing and I thought, "Who doesn't love a from-the-heart handmade gift?" (Especially one that pampers?) Using ingredients I already have in the pantry I found a fun recipe for a sugar scrub. I whipped it up in a matter of minutes, and you can too! Starting off with a thin mint sugar scrub, I've also included the ingredients needed for three other sugar scrubs.

Thin Mint Sugar Scrub

Ingredients/Supplies:

• 1 Cup of your choice of oil. I had olive oil on hand so I used that but you could also use coconut or baby oil.
• 2 Cups white granulated sugar
• Several drops of peppermint essential oil
• Green food coloring (since I was using olive oil, I only needed a bit of blue food coloring.)
• Cute glass container

The steps are simple:

1. Mix sugar and olive oil together in a bowl until you have your desired coarseness.
2. Add food coloring and peppermint oil. (For this step, I used my hand mixer to evenly disperse the color.)
3. Pour in glass jar and tie with string or ribbon.

I had to try it out for myself and it’s fantastic! It’s the perfect gift for our dry winter months. I found several variations that I think would be fun to try as well. Here are just a few…

Pumpkin Spice Latte Scrub:

Use brown sugar instead of white along with 1 Cup coffee grounds, 2 Tbsp. pumpkin pie spice, 2 tsp. cinnamon and 2 tsp. vanilla extract.  Sounds good enough to eat.

Vanilla Lavender Sugar Scrub:

Use 1 tsp. vanilla extract and a few drops of lavender essential oil for a relaxing, sleepy time scrub.

Lemon Sugar Scrub:

Use a few drops of lemon essential oil and a touch of yellow food coloring. Sounds so refreshing!

I hope this inspires you to whip some up too! Since they’re so simple to make, I know several people on my list that I will be making these for.