It’s about that time of year again, that time when everybody starts worrying about gifts for their friends and family during the holiday season. It can be exhausting and expensive, especially if you have a lot of people in your life whom you want to give gifts. Thankfully, there are a ton of different ways to approach the season of gifts without breaking the bank, one of the most fun and practical being DIYs!

DIY stands for “Do It Yourself,” a popular trend where people hand-make items which they would usually buy in stores. DIY projects can be just about anything, from building a custom tool-case to making your own bath bombs. One of my personal favorite DIYs, however, is a peppermint sugar scrub.

Sugar scrubs are easy, fast, and useful gifts, especially in the winter. The air is much drier, which also dries out the skin on your face significantly. Sugar scrubs exfoliate the dead skin from your face and unclog your pores, while also moisturizing and soothing chapped and irritated skin. They can have as few as two ingredients (two parts sugar and one part coconut oil), or they can have dozens, depending on the maker’s taste. In my case, I like to add a few extra ingredients to really make it personal.

The best part is, each batch takes only five to ten minutes to make, and you get enough of the scrub for several gifts! All you have to do is stop at a dollar store and pick up some fun little containers which you can decorate any way you want, and then you have a festive, hand-made gift which your friends will know that you put time and effort into.

Recipe:

2 cups of sugar: It wouldn’t be a sugar scrub without sugar! The sugar exfoliates the skin, but unlike the tiny plastic microbeads found in many face washes, it doesn’t pollute the ocean.

-½ cup  coconut oil: The coconut oil is the ingredient which holds everything else together. It’s also fantastic for moisturizing skin without leaving residue or causing acne!

-⅓  cup Cetaphil: This is a personal touch; Cetaphil is one of the best lotions I’ve ever used, but too much of it can get heavy and greasy really quickly. Having it in a scrub gives all the benefits of the lotion itself, without the additional heaviness.

-2 squirts of lanolin: Lanolin is a waterproof oil found in sheep’s wool. It’s fantastic for skin, and breast-feeding mothers often use it to sooth chapped nipples.

-1 squirt of dish soap: This may sound weird, but the dish soap really helps to avoid any excess residue that could get left on your face after you rinse. It’s weird, but it works.

-15+ drops of peppermint oil: This is for scent–you can use any scent you’d like, really, but peppermint is my favorite, both for its soothing properties and its great smell!

-2 Drops of food coloring or soap dye (optional): This is just to get that lovely mint green color, but don’t worry, it won’t dye your skin! The only thing it does is add to the aesthetic appeal of the scrub 😀