over the past couple of years, my sister and i have inadvertently started a new holiday tradition of getting together to make diy christmas presents. last year, we mixed up fancy bath soaks. and this year, we tried our hand at a little holiday care package including: a tinted lip balm, a brown sugar lip scrub, and a hydrating rose water spray to give as gifts to friends and family. finding the right gifts for everyone on your list can be a really harrowing process, but we’ve found that by slowing down and thoughtfully putting together a few luxurious products is almost always a gifting win. heck, even the process of making them becomes a mini spa experience with all of the essential oils wafting through the room. so without further adieu, here are a few recipes that you can pull together with simple household ingredients, even on the eve of christmas eve!

rosewater facial mist

ingredients:

3/4 cup of distilled water

1/4 cup of rosewater

2-3 drops vitamin E oil (or any carrier oil)

2-3 drops rosehip seed essential oil

In a small bowl combine all ingredients and mix well. Oil and water doesn’t mix, so be ready to pour into your spray bottles immediately for a more uniform mixture in each. The fun thing about face mists is that you can play around with oils that you find calming. If you prefer a strong aroma of rosewater, then change the ratio to 1:1 with distilled water or even fill the entire spray bottle with only rosewater.

coconut lip balm

ingredients:

2 tbsp grated beeswax

2 tbsp organic coconut oil

2 tsp carrier oil (anything from vitamin e to sweet almond oil to jojoba oil, which is what we used)

several drops of vanilla essential oil

In a small saucepan on very low heat, combine beeswax, coconut oil, and carrier oil.  Keep a watchful eye. Stir ingredients until all the beeswax has melted and immediately remove from heat. Over heating can ruin the texture.  Once off the heat, add in your essential or flavor oils.  Stir. Then, with a dropper, fill your container with the mixture.  This recipe is really open to interpretation.  If you prefer a softer lip balm with more shine, then change up the ratio between the beeswax and coconut oil – more coconut oil means a glossier, softer balm.  We love the simple mix of delicate coconut oil with vanilla, but we even played around with some adding peppermint oil.  To get a colored balm, we just added a chunk of lipstick to the saucepan while melting ingredients.  The more lipstick the stronger the color.

brown sugar lip scrub

ingredients:

2 cups organic brown sugar

1 cup of oil (any oil or combination of oils will work, we used organic coconut oil with a few tsp’s of sweet almond oil)

In a small bowl, combine ingredients.  Since we used coconut oil, this involved us getting our hands a little dirty – using natural body heat to melt the coconut oil and combine with the sugar.  The mixture should be more dry and gritty than wet.  If you find it too wet, just add more brown sugar to the mix.  This base recipe can be dressed up by using essential or flavor oils. We decided to add some spicy ground ginger and allspice to the mix, along with a few drops of vanilla essential oil, for a warm holiday inspired aroma – again, play around with the amounts, a tbsp of each was enough for us, but you could omit one or the other or add more of both for a bolder flavor.