I’m not teaching any summer camps this year, but making fun Spa Day gifts with kids to share with their friends and families is one of my favorite activities! Everyone loves to experiment with Essential Oils, and bath products are a great way to use them and find out what you like best.
It seems strange to use white sugar and salt in beauty preparations, but mixed with oil they do not dissolve and provide a really amazing amount of exfoliation for dead skin. The oils help keep the new skin beneath soft and supple. Give some of these a try!
Sensational Scrubs
Lemon Hand Scrub (for after washing dishes):
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp vitamin E oil
15-20 drops (or more) of lemon or orange essential oil
Sugar and Salt Scrubs
1 part oil
2 parts sugar or salt
Essential oils
Mix ingredients together and store in a glass jar. If left too long in a plastic container, it might start to get unpleasantly ‘sticky’.
Use scrubs after you have already washed with soap and water. You can rinse the salt or sugar off when you are done rubbing it into your skin. Ideally, you would leave the oil on your skin, but you can also use a light soap wash to remove excess oily residue.
Bathtime Bliss
Bath Sachets
Dried Rose petals, lavender, rosemary, sage leaves, or citrus peel
oatmeal
Pouches of undyed muslin or cheesecloth
Use your imagination and try a variety of dried herbs and flowers to create your own bath sachets! Combine them with approximately 1/2 cup of oatmeal and tie the sachet up tightly with a string. Throw it into a hot bath of any size (how about a refreshing foot bath?) and let it steep. You could start that process ahead of time by pouring boiling hot water over the sachet before you draw your bath, then pour it and the water in once it has steeped long enough to soften the dried contents. Once it is sodden, the oatmeal inside provides a nice gentle skin cleanser and you can scrub with the sachet itself!
Menthol Shower Disks
3 cups baking soda
1 cup water
20 drops each: eucalyptus, rosemary, and lavender essential oils
Small molds to form the disks. Small muffin tins also work. If you can line the tins with silicon liners, the disks will pop out with no effort.
Mix water with baking soda to form a thick paste. Add essential oils. Pour into muffin tins or molds, bake at 300 degrees for 20 minutes.
Place in the bottom of your shower when you are feeling stuffy and the hot water will release the essential oils into the steamy air. Bliss!
Fizzie Bath Bombs
1 cup baking soda
½ cup citric acid
½ cup corn starch
½ cup Epsom salts
2 ½ tsp almond oil
¾ tsp water
1-2 drops food coloring
Mix all dry ingredients together, removing clumps.
Add oil to the dry ingredients, mixing thoroughly.
Using a mister, add colored water very slowly until the mix has the texture of damp sand, and holds together when squeezed. Go slowly and only add enough water to dampen it, and stir it in quickly to stop the chemical reaction from causing it to fizz.
Once the mixture holds together, press it into molds. Either pop them into a dehydrator to dry, or put them in a low oven to dry them out.
A few thrown into a bucket would make a refreshing foot soak, use more to fizz up an entire bathtub!