Natural, Homemade Gift Ideas

The holidays are upon us!  Sorry, I am posting this so late in the month, but I'm going to give away some of my thrifty holiday secrets so I hope you'll forgive me.

Now I know the holidays really should not be about presents, but it is a nice excuse to play with your food with the extra perk of giving the fruits (pun-intended) of your labor to loved ones.  I hope these little ideas help relieve some of the stress of feeling like the holidays need to suck up your time or bankrupt you.

Generally, these ideas involve making a large quantity of quality gifts with materials that you can find in your home.  Or if you don't already have them in your home and you don't use all of them up for gift-making, you can use the ingredients for other things (like cooking, who knew?)!

Almond Oil Age-Defying Home Skin Treatment

Ingredients

• Almond Oil
• Carrot Seed Oil (optional)
• Rose-hip Essential Oil (optional)
• Lavendar Oil (optional)

So there's really only one ingredient for this which is great!  The others are all optional but definitely nice (they're just a little more expensive).  All you need to do for this gift is fill a small, pretty bottle (an Alice in Wonderland "Drink Me" sized bottle is what my imagination conjures), with almond oil and then add about 10 drops of one of the optional oils above.

Almond oil is rich in linoleic acid which helps the skin retain water.

Carrot Seed Oil is used to stimulate cell growth and therefore can improve skin's elasticity.

This is Rosehip.  Isn't it pretty? Rosehip Oil contains retinol (Vitamin A), vitamin C and fatty acids and is used to reduce wrinkles, fine lines and scars.

Lavender flowers

Lavendar Oil is used to reduce inflammation and may help with mild acne.

Then, your can write down what is in your bottle and its benefits and give the gift with these instructions: "Wash face with your normal cleanser.  Massage oil into a clean face for at least two minutes and rinse with warm water."  Voila!  An easy and natural gift for anyone who cares about keeping their skin fresh, clean and hydrated.

Chickpea Facial Scrub

Ingredients:

• Chickpea Flour
• Water
• Green Tea Leaves (optional)
• Mashed Banana (optional)
• Rosehip Essential Oil (optional)

You need to let the person you are giving this to know they need to use it up within a week (within a few days if you add the banana) or else it will grow moldy and useless (well, not useless, you can always compost it).  

The measurements of this depend on your preference.  I prefer my scrub a little more on the soggy side.  Mix a few Tablespoons of chickpea flour with a smaller amount of water to the consistency that you want it.  Then you can add one of the other 3 ingredients if you want.  Here's an added benefit: I soak and strain the green tea leaves in hot water; drink the tea and then use the leaves for the scrub!  You can get creative with other food: papaya is a great fruit to use in scrubs or honey works, too.  

Banana is rich in lutein, vitamin C and potassium.  Rubbing the pulp on skin helps moisturize and soften skin.

Papaya and Green tea leaves can be an antioxidant-rich, gentle exfoliant.

Honey hydrates and moisturizes skin.

The instructions to use the scrub is the same: Just massage it on to a clean face for a few minutes and rinse it off with warm water.  It feels and works way better than any facial scrub I have every bought at a store.

~Shreena

P.S.  I shamelessly got all my pictures for this post from Google if you couldn't already tell.

... More gift ideas to come...