How to Make 100 Natural Body Care Gifts in an Hour!
How would you like to get most of your Christmas gifts made in one hour?
You can.
In fact, you could make more (I'll explain how in a minute).
Tonight I made 100 gifts in one hour and I'm going to show you exactly how you can do it too.
The end result will be:
- 10 lavender-chamomile bath tea bags
- 50 chocolate peppermint lip balms
- 24 chocolate peppermint lotion bars
- 16 oatmeal cookie bath treatments
- 6 brown sugar-vanilla sugar scrubs (you can make a lot more of these without much effort)
If you would like to make the above, gather the following ingredients:
- for lavender-chamomile bath tea bags
1-1/2 cup dried lavender (buy on Amazon or Mountain Rose Herbs)
1-1/2 cups dried chamomile flowers (buy on Amazon or Mountain Rose Herbs)
1/2 cup oats
10 drops lavender essential oil - for Chocolate-Peppermint lotion bars and lip balm
15 ounces beeswax (buy on Amazon or Mountain Rose Herbs)
15 ounces cocoa butter (buy on Amazon or Mountain Rose Herbs)
15 ounces coconut oil (buy on Amazon or Mountain Rose Herbs)
2 teaspoons peppermint essential oil - for Oatmeal Cookie Bath
6 cups oats
3 cups baking soda
3 teaspoons cinnamon
3 Tablespoons vanilla extract - for Sugar Scrubs
3 cups brown sugar
1-1/2 cup oil (safflower, sunflower, sweet almond, and/or grapeseed)
1 Tablespoon vanilla
(If you would like to make more, just double, triple, or quadruple these ingredients)
Note: you could easily prepare a different sugar scrub at this time. See my eBook, The Body Scrub Bible for recipes and ideas - you will also need
mixing bowls (at least two)
food processor (for cookie bath)
large pot or double boiler (for lotion bars and lip balm)
2 muffin tins
50 lip balm tubes and lids (buy on Amazon or Mountain Rose Herbs)
Optional: lip balm tube tray
10 small muslin tea bags – 2 3/4″ x 4″ (buy from Amazon or Mountain Rose Herbs or make your own)
measuring cups and spoons
freezer space for the muffin tins
20 – 1/2 cup jars (or 6 – 1/2 cup jars for sugar scrubs and 14 cellophane bags for cookie bath)
Note: most of my ingredients are from Mountain Rose Herbs, but many can be purchased from Amazon (such as beeswax, cocoa butter, and lip balm tubes).
How to make 100 all-natural body care gifts in one hour {the method}
Print these instructions or keep the computer close by for the speediest gift-making process.
Step One: Gather all supplies
Taking 5 to 10 minutes to place everything on the table or countertop will making everything go much more smoothly.
Step Two: Begin Lotion bars and Lip Balm
Measure the cocoa butter, beeswax, and coconut oil into a bowl – the quickest way is to place a bowl on a kitchen scale that can be zeroed out. Press zero between each ingredient, so you can measure straight into the bowl.
Place all ingredients into a heavy pot and warm over medium-low heat. Leave to melt (this will take about 20 minutes). Stir occasionally.
Step Three: Prepare oats
While the lotion bar ingredients are melting, measure the oats for the oatmeal cookie bath and the bath tea bags into the food processor (6 1/2 cups of oats). Grind until a fine powder.
Remove 1/2 cup of the powdered oats and place into a large bowl.
Step Four: Prepare Bath tea bags
We are going to mix together the bath tea bag ingredients in the bowl in which you just put the 1/2 cup of ground oats.
Add 1-1/2 cups of lavender and 1-1/2 cups of dried chamomile to the bowl and stir with the oats.
Add the 10 drops of lavender essential oil and stir to distribute evenly.
Once everything is nicely mixed, set aside.
Go and stir the ingredients melting on the stove.
Step Five: Prepare Oatmeal Cookie Bath
Add 3 cups of baking soda, 3 teaspoons of cinnamon, and 3 Tablespoons of vanilla to the oats in the food processor.
Grind until everything is mixed and becomes a fine powder. Take lid off food processor and let sit while preparing the next item.
Go check the melting pot again.
Step Six: Prepare Sugar Scrubs
NOTE: If the lotion bar ingredients have melted, deal with them according to the next step and then come back to this one. Mine were not ready until after I mixed the sugar scrubs, but it could be different for you.
Measure sugar scrub ingredients into a large bowl. Stir to combine.
The measurements above will make six 1/2 cup scrubs or three 1-cup scrubs. If you would like to make more, simply multiply the ingredients accordingly. It would be just as easy to make 20 scrubs as it is to make six!
Step Seven: Finish Lotion Bars and Lip balm
Once the cocoa butter, beeswax, and coconut oil have melted, turn off the heat and allow to cool for a few minutes, then add the peppermint oil and stir to combine. (If they have not melted yet, begin working on step 8 and come back to this. I was able to fill a few jars before my ingredients were melted.)
Use a measuring cup with a spout or dropper designed for using with lip balm (I don't have one), and pour melted ingredients into the lip balm tubes. I use a lip balm tube tray, which makes this very easy:
As you can see, it was a rather messy job! And I didn't put enough in two of the tubes.
PLEASE be very careful! You are working with HOT oil that can burn and cause serious damage. Do not leave any of the pots or other items with the hot ingredients near the edge of counters or stoves. Also be sure to work on a stable surface.
Leave lip balm to cool on the counter or put in freezer for faster solidifying.
Pour the remaining melted mixture into the muffin tins, dividing evenly between each muffin hole.
Place muffin trays in the freezer. Set timer for 30 minutes.
Step Eight: Package scrubs, cookie bath, and bath tea bags
Use a small measuring cup or very large measuring spoon to fill jars with oatmeal cookie bath ingredients (in the food processor). My jars held 1/2 cup each.
Next, fill the tea bags with approx. 1/2 cup each of lavender-chamomile-oat mixture. Tie each bag closed so contents does not come out.
Finally, spoon scrubs into jars.
You may have a little time to rest now. Or maybe not.
Spend a few minutes cleaning up the jars if they are messy. I used a paper towel to wipe off excess sugar and oil from the scrub jars, and use a paint brush to dust off the cookie bath mixture that had fallen on the outside of the oatmeal cookie bath containers.
Once the timer goes off, remove the lotion bars and lip balm from the freezer. Pop bars out of muffin trays and remove lip balm tubes from the holder.
You're all done!
.
After a little rest, you can label the jars as you please.
On the Cookie bath jars (or bags, if you used them) mention that the entire contents should be poured into a warm bath (while the water is running).
For the Bath Tea Bags – the bags should float in the water or be tied around the faucet so the water runs through while the bath is filling.
Other products that would be very easy to make in any down time during this hour (if you have some), are: hand lotion, body oil, or perfume sticks. They use some of the same ingredients so would fit in very nicely to this gift making process.
Not too shabby for an hour's work.
Let me know if you try it!
Pin this post!
This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.
This is such a great idea! I just pinned this, and will share it on Facebook in the next few days, too. Reminds me of “Once a Month Cooking!”
Thanks, Eileen!
This is just what I have in mind for our gift giving this year! I’m glad to see my plans will only take an hour if I have it organized enough! Now if there were gifts for men too… hmmm, ideas?
Ah yes, the men 🙂 I need to come up with some good ideas for that crowd. How about a homemade aftershave or shaving lotion? Might be a new blog post in the works 🙂
couldn’t you just switch some of the essential oils for a more manly scent and still give SOME of these same products to men? I think guys like lip balm when they are outdoors shoveling snow or doing winter sports… just thinking aloud!
Thank you sooooooooooo much I love this site, it has inspired me to be consciously aware of living and being healthy and it’s fun too. My kids really dig getting their hands into making these awesome creations.
Love and eternal love as always,
Sara
Where can I find the tube tray?
Michelle,
I can’t remember exactly where I got it. If you google “lip balm tray” a bunch of options come up. It might have been from SKS bottle, but I’m not sure! There are some on sale in a few Etsy stores, too.
Use a small deep box full of white play sand. I usually have sufficient quantities of it around from mixing soils for plants. You can make about anything stand up in sand.
Love it! Thanks so much!
Silly question… where did you get the cute blue jars from?? I’ve been looking for some and am having a tough time tracking them down. Thanks!
The jars were given to me buy a natural doctor who was decluttering! I know, I’m lucky.
Mountain Rose Herbs sells Cobalt blue jars. Find those here: http://bit.ly/1iUEseN
Hope that helps.
This is GREAT! Sharing on FB now :).
Thanks for sharing, Adrienne!
great ideas I just pinned it 🙂
I am just interested in making the lip balm. Would you happen to have the measurements for the 50 tubes of that? I’ve made lip balm before, but only in small batches of about a dozen. I just ordered a holder for 50 tubes, as I have a lot of coworkers, so I could do this easily for the holidays. Any help would be appreciated, as you know, no one wants wasted ingredients, and I’ve never made in this volume before.
About 1 ounce of each beeswax, cocoa butter, and coconut oil, should make about 18-20 lip balm tubes. So… I think, to make 50 tubes, you will need:
2.5 ounces beeswax
2.5 ounces cocoa butter
2.5 ounces coconut oil
3/4 teaspoon peppermint oil
Does that seem like a correct calculation?
That seems pretty close, I think. If there’s any leftover I can just make a lotion bar. I have square silicone ice cube trays I’ve used for lotion bars before.
I am making these today, didn’t want the lotion bars – so I will reply back shortly and let you know if that calculation works out! 🙂 I couldn’t find a scale, so I am doing conversions to cups and it’s about 1/3 C in equivalency to the 2.5 oz.
I made these gifts but need a way to package the lotion bars that would be convenient to use in a purse. Help! What did you use??
I found some plastic jars with lids at the craft store. They were in the scrapbooking section, I think, for holding odds and ends (like paper clips, beads, etc).
I’ve also given them wrapped in unbleached parchment paper and tied with some raffia, then placed in a little dish (like a ramekin). I like to keep mine in a small bowl in the bedside table to use on my hands before bed. That’s a pretty gift idea, but not for a purse.
For myself, I will also keep in a ziplock bag in my purse, although that’s not overly pretty for gift giving.
Hope that gives you some ideas.
If you don’t have a craft store near by, you may be able to find some small food storage containers. Even the disposable kind would work.
Maybe something like this could work (I’m not sure if these are the right size, but this is what I was thinking of when I said small food storage containers):
Rubbermaid Take-Alongs
Or, Gladware Mini Round 4 oz Containers with Lid
Some have asked about the cost to make these gifts, which is a great question. I had most of the ingredients on hand already, so it’s hard to gauge the exact price.
This is what I could figure out by thinking about the past purchases:
The beeswax cost 13 per lb (the recipes uses just under a lb)
Cocoa butter – $13 – $14 per lb
Coconut oil – I buy in 1 gallon buckets. So, um, I’m not sure. I usually buy it at Mountain Rose Herbs or through my food co-op.
Brown sugar was just a few dollars, maybe $2 or $3
Peppermint essential oil – $7 a bottle (I used 2 teaspoons, so maybe $3 or $4 worth)
I also buy the herbs in bulk, so I’m not sure how much per 1-1/2 cup (lavender is 6.75 for 4oz, and chamomile is $5.50 for 4oz.
Lip balm tubes were about $12 for 50
Oil – maybe $4
So, if I had to guess, I’d say around $60 or so – Some of this stuff you can stock up on sale at different times. It didn’t feel like it cost me that much b/c I already have most of these supplies and didn’t really have to buy anything just for this.
Mountain Rose Herbs has monthly sales and if you are able to order through Frontier Co-op, they have pretty good prices and regular sales, too.
Hope that helps.
I will try to do a more precise calculation soon.
At lipbalmtubes.com you can get 100 tubes for $16.
I think when I priced everything on Mountain rose herbs (assuming I had none of this on hand), it was more like $100 and then another $20-$30 for the jars, bags, etc. I actually found a bunch of the ingredients (oils and such) at my local grocery store and they were about 3/4 the price from MRH (especially when you add in shipping, too!). I do think this is still a VERY economical way to make a bunch of gifts! For the jars, I’m probably going to use baby food jars and make cute little tags to put on them! I had an actual question about this post, but I can’t remember it anymore! Lol. I’ll have to come back later when I remember. Thank you for sharing!
You can make Brown sugar cheaper than buying it. For every one cup of white sugar add one tsp of molasses for light brown and two tsp for dark brown. One jar of molasses will last forever!
How much does all of this cost? Can you give us a *General* Price range for everything required? Providing links for each item would be very helpful too….I think this is a great idea! But a bit more information on the logistics end would be helpful. Knowing the general price most of all.
I had none of the supplies or tools (glass measuring jar for double-boiler, storage containers, etc.) on-hand and spent approximately $160 w/shipping to get all supplies and tools needed. The only thing I did not get/have was a scale.
I bought extra quantities of the lavender and chamomile so I could double-up on the bag bags, have a delicious dozen cups of tea and had a great recipe to use that extra ounce of the butters & waxes to make some bath melts!
Thanks for letting me know! Looks like I underestimated by quite a lot!
Sounds like you are going to have a lot of fun gifts to share 🙂
I can’t use bees wax bad allergy so please tell me what kind of wax I should use instead.
Two alternatives to beeswax are Candelilla Wax and Carnauba Wax. I haven’t use either as yet. I might get some next time I place an order with Mountain Rose Herbs to try it out myself. Mountain Rose Herbs carries caranauba wax. It does cost a little more than beeswax.
Amazon sells Candelilla wax (it’s a bit cheaper).
Hope that helps.
Soy wax is excellent for lotion bars as well. I always keep low temp melt soy wax on hand for lotion bars and lip balms for those with bee allergies. I find it does a superior job at moisturizing really dry skin like mine. For the men in your life, add a few drops of Bay Leaf essential oil and a drop or two of lime for a classic men’s scent. Sandalwood is usually well received by both men and women. Low melting temperature soy candles also make wonderful massage oil. High temp soy wax is fabulous for candles, they take a LOT of scent and are great for Yankee or Gold Canyon type ultra scent jars and melts. Soy is readily available at Amazon and Hobby Lobby, or any candle supply store.
Couldn’t I use Olive Oil for the oil since it’s so beneficial for the skin?
Yes, that olive oil work fine (did you mean in the scrubs?).
You have totally saved my Christmas present making plans! Thank you so much!
Awesome! I’m glad to help 🙂
Question… 11/2 that would just be 5 1/2 cups right??? Or are you meaning something different?
Question… 11/2 that would just be 5 1/2 cups right??? Or are you meaning something different?
I think she means 1.5 cups??
Yes, I mean’t 1.5 cups! Thanks for catching that Amy and Sherri. I’ll update the post to be more clear.
I am allergic to coconut. What do you suggest using in place of the coconut oil?
I’m so glad I found this post! I had a bath tonight with the oatmeal cookie formula and I liked it. Left some mess in the tub, though. Do you know of any bags that would have the same effect as the bath but keep the ingredients contained?
Hello,
Thank you so much for these blogs! I can’t wait to start making all these wonderful things! I have a quick question for you. For the chapstick- Could I use shea butter instead of coco butter? If so how much would I use? I was looking earlier for chapstick recipes and they told me to use shea butter but I would rather use your recipe. I already bought the shea butter though. Thanks for any help!
Elizabeth,
Shea butter should work just fine. She butter is a little softer than cocoa butter, so you might want to reduce the amount a little (I’m not sure how much b/c I haven’t made them using shea butter yet), or add a little more beeswax.
You could make a small amount first, to test it out. Just use 1 tablespoon shea butter, 1 tablespoon beeswax, and one tablespoon coconut oil, then see how firm it is once it’s cooled.
Hi I’m interested in making the oatmeal cookie bath. Could I use quick oats or does it have to be the cooking one? Does it make any difference, Thanks 🙂
Quick oats would be fine.
What size jars did you use, and where did you find them?
What is bar lotion and how do you use it?
Does the cocoa butter give it the chocolate scent? Peppermint oil burns my skin but like the idea of a chocolate only if I can leave it out or add another oil?
The cocoa butter does give it a chocolate scent. You could leave the peppermint oil out and just have the cocoa butter lotion bar, it would still be very nice.
It would be fine to replace the peppermint with another essential oil, although I’m not sure which one would go well with the chocolate scent.
This is fantastic, just got done! Went really quickly and it all looks great and my house smells amazing, not to mention I am moisturized from head to toe because of my clumsiness. Any suggestions as to how to clean my pots though :b
Just wanted to say I loved your post so much I blogged a bit about it hope it’s ok can be found here: http://cricketsdailyfix.com/blog-connecting/make-100-natural-body-care-gifts-in-an-hour-blog-connecting/
Oh wow this is amazing! I shared it with a friend of mine who wanted to do salt scrubs for gifts for several people. and I’ve pinned it for me too!! Thank you so much!
Such great ideas! Thanks for posting.
Quick question- for the oatmeal bath, could I use liquid Vanilla extract or does it need to be in powder form as well? 1 whole jar used for bath or just a little at a time? Thanks!
You can use liquid vanilla extract.
Use one whole jar for the bath.
Have fun 🙂
I just found out a couple family members absolutely hate lavender! Any suggestions for a different bath tea bag?
I just finished doing this my girls, 5 and 10 years. They had a great time and are so excited to give these to teachers. Took about 2 hours from ingredient gathering to clean-up. I suspect the extra “help” may have caused some delays. We used a tray of snow to hold the tubes and I filled them with a 1 tsp. Dosing syringe.
A friend and I spent about $100 for way over what we needed on bramble berry. They have awesome ingredients! But anywho it cook us a couple of extra hours to do them ( we made lots more!) But everything smell great and looks awesome! Going to be great Xmas presents this year!
I was just wondering. But, where did you acquire the lip balm tubes and filling tray from. Also, do you recall he price? Thanks.
The not he. Haha…whoops.
Awesome collection. Love the detailed use of time 🙂
Thank you for sharing!
God bless,
Patty
Cool
Wow! I can’t believe you are so freely sharing all these ideas. Bravo! My girl! Thank-you. 🙂 May the blessings return to you.
You are very kind. Thank you for your encouragement 🙂
Amazing – thanks! However, none of your affiliate links work?
Thanks! I fixed them 🙂 I appreciate you letting me know.