Minty Sugar Scrub Bars

I really enjoy making homemade gifts. There is something about the thoughtfulness behind homemade presents that makes it special to give and receive. When Natalie and I were thinking about  posts to write for "blogmas" we both knew we wanted to incorporate a gift that could be enjoyed by many. After a quick search on Pinterest, we came across a recipe for a Sugar Scrub Bar from A Pumpkin and a Princess. The base of this recipe is soap ~ so it's a bit more time consuming to make, but the final product is just like a tiny bar of soap mixed with a sugar scrub. If this sounds like something you'd like to give to friends/family/co-workers this year, keep reading to find out how we made this recipe our own.  

As mentioned, we can't take full credit for this recipe but tweaked it a little to make it more appealing to our likes.  We began with this recipe as a base: A Pumpkin and a Princess blog. 

We didn't really want a gingerbread scent, so we decided to dig out our essential oils and work with what we liked and had. We ended up using a mixture of Tangerine oil (Citrus Reticulata) and Japanese Mint Oil. The original recipe calls for a mixture of regular baking spices but we thought that a mint oil was very "Christmas-y" and would make a great aroma for a scrub. This recipe made so many bars and after the first batch we decided to add crushed candy cane to give it some extra adorableness. 

We followed the original recipe for most of the ingredients:

1/2 cup of soap (from Michaels, we used the Olive Oil type from Life of The Party brand)

1/4 cup of Olive Oil - it calls for sweet almond oil but A) it is expensive B) essentially has the job of softening the skin, which any oil would do, even coconut oil. 

1 cup of brown sugar

1 tsp of vanilla

essential oils - we used approximately 20 drops (play around with different aromas )

The soap base we purchased at Michaels recommended that it be melted in the microwave (whereas the original recipe suggests a double boiler) so we used the microwave and it took 1 minute at normal power to completely liquify. 

We then added the Olive Oil and vanilla (as suggested).

As we added the brown sugar and essential oils and mixed, the mixture became very thick and almost toffee-like. If you're interested in adding little decorations to the tops of the soaps, add them to the pan BEFORE you push the mixture in.

The mixture does take about 5 minutes to harden once it starts cooling off, so you have to work quickly. We used a silicon mould and it worked perfectly!!! Highly recommend. The trees came out very easily after we left them in the freezer for 15 minutes. 

Then we took them out, and they looked like this:

You can package this however you like. I'm giving them as gifts and put them in cellophane and tied them with a cute card, bakers twine and a pearl.

So there you have our little twist on a sugar scrub. We couldn't have done it without A Pumpkin and a Princess! We really had fun making these and commented many times that they were relitavely easy to make and think they are cute and adorable and will make a fun Christmas gift for girlfriends. 

Try these out and let us know what you think! 

 Erin