I've gone through everything that I've made, and I have a small parcel of spa items to give away. Use these items for yourself, or save them as stocking stuffers or a small gift for someone at the holidays. And please, don't be critical of my novice knitting! Ha ha! (Unless that's constructive criticism, of course.)
What's in this giveaway?
- a bar each of Goats Milk Lavender soap and Honey Almond Oatmeal soap
- a packet of Lavender Oatmeal bath tea and a packet of Peach Rose bath tea
- one lavender spa cloth and one ecru spa cloth
This giveaway is open to USA residents (even Hawaii and Alaska) only. To enter, simply leave a comment at the end of this post. This giveaway ends at midnight, PST, on Saturday, November 26, 2016. Check back Monday morning, November 28, for the winner, and I'll get this in the mail as quickly as I can!
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Now, on to making bubble bath.
This bubble bath went into the spa basket that I gave to my son's girlfriend for her birthday this past weekend. (Photo of the completed basket was on facebook a couple of weeks ago, and will be in tomorrow's post, FYI.)
At the end of summer, I found this pretty bottle on clearance at Michael's, for $2.37.
Hobby Lobby carries bubble bath/shower gel base in 32 oz buckets. I used a 40% off coupon, and paid $4.80 for 32 ounces of bubble bath base. To the base, I added a tiny amount of lavender soap colorant, lavender oil and vitamin E oil. It's very, very bubbly stuff, so it can take thinning. My pretty bottle holds 8 ounces, so I used just under 8 ounces of bubble bath base, at a cost of about $1.20. I had the soap colorant, lavender oil and vitamin E oil at home. My estimated cost on those items is 25 cents.
My total cost on the homemade bubble bath in a pretty bottle, was about $3.82. While that's not super-duper inexpensive, it's about half to one-third of what I might spend on a pretty bottle of bubble bath, retail, at a place like Marshall's. (I now have 24 ounces of bubble bath base leftover, in my craft cupboard, to make bottles of bubble bath for gifts in the future.)
The whole process took less than 10 minutes. The base is thick, so I melted what I needed in a glass measuring cup in the microwave for about 20 seconds. Then I stirred in the color and oils. When completely mixed, I poured the bubble bath into the glass bottle. Easy peasy.
The bubble bath base was difficult to locate, retail, in small quantities. I found it at Hobby Lobby, in the soap-making supplies. I also read that you can use unscented, baby shampoo for the base. Although, this bubble bath base was quite thick and bubbly. A retail product like baby shampoo is thinner. So, I'm not sure how much of a savings you'd achieve by using an unscented baby shampoo.
For a quick and easy hand-crafted gift, particularly for making several gifts at once, bubble bath could knock 4 to 5 gifts off your list, with no special skills or equipment required. Honestly, this is much simpler than making soap.
You may already have a couple of bottles that could be used, such as specialty vinegar, steak sauce or condiment bottles, or you could check thrift shops for bottles, if this idea interests you.
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