Beauty & Food Recipes from our DIY Mid-Winter Social

Since nothing much exciting happens in January and it’s cold here in Connecticut, usually with lots of snow on the ground, we decided to liven up a Saturday afternoon by hosting a DIY Winter Social. The women created soap, bath bomb and foot scrub beauty products in kitchen and we munched on some great appetizers including Greg’s homemade Guacamole and Chili.

party food ideas

Disclosure: we received samples of Nuvino wine, Blue Chair Bay Rum, Nutiva Coconut Oil for our foot cream recipe, and beauty boxes to make the bath bombs and loofa soap.

Greg’s Guacamole Dip Recipe

Guacamole Dip is super simple and a huge hit at any party. Make sure you have something to scoop it up with like Tortilla Chips or Pita Bread.

Greg's Guacamole Dip Recipe

Ingredients: 1 ripe avocado, 1 tablespoon chopped garlic, 1 plum tomato, 2 stalks of green onion, dash of salt and pepper. Make sure your avocado is very ripe or it won’t mash up and will be too chunky.

Directions: Chop the avocado, green onion, and tomato into small chunks. Mash the avocado, tomato and green onion together in a small bowl. Squeeze the juice of one lime into the bowl.

Nuvino single serve wines

Nuvino sent us their single-serve wines to try – we like to call them “sippy cup” wines and everyone was thrilled to try them. Nuvino single-serve wines comes in 4 varieties – Red Blend from Australia, Malbec from Argentina, Sauvignon Blanc from Chile, and Chardonnay from South Africa. The packaging is unbreakable and resealable with a plastic screw top.

Nuvino Wine is available at select markets and wine shops and online as well.

Blue Chair Bay Spiced Rum Coconut Dream Cocktail Recipe

Kenny Chesney’s company, Blue Chair Bay Rum, sent us some Coconut Spiced Rum to try out for our party. Greg came up with a great cocktail that definitely makes you feel like you are on a tropical island. I think it would be even better as a frozen concoction. Ingredients: 2 oz of Blue Chair Bay Spiced Coconut Rum, 1 oz Coconut Milk, 1 oz pineapple juice, 1/2 oz orange juice.

Directions: Put all ingredients in cocktail shaker and shake well. Toast and brown fresh coconut on the stove in a frying pan.

If you want to host your own DIY Beauty Party, I highly suggest you sign up to get a DIY Beauty Box. Each beauty box comes with all of the supplies you need to make from 6 to 8 beauty products. Because the supplies are just enough to make the quantity given, that means you don’t buy more than you need and don’t have any leftover. They also provide molds, packaging and labels so if you aren’t hosting a party they make great homemade gifts!

handmade loofah soap instructions

Loofah Soap Instructions

The Loofah Soap instructions are also provided in the Handmade Beauty Box kit.

Ingredients and Supplies Needed:

  • 2 lbs Clear Melt and Pour Soap Base
  • 8 Soap Molds with Lids
  • 1 oz Sunny Herb Garden Fragrance Oil (or your own favorite oil)
  • 1 Electric Bubble Gum Color Block
  • 1 Tangerine Wow Color Block
  • 1 Loofah sponge
  • 1 eye dropper
  • Spray Bottle (for rubbing alcohol)
  • 2 medium size Mixing Bowls (or Heat Safe Containers)
  • Spoons
  • Scissors
  • Paper Towels

Handmade Loofah Soap Instructions:

Loofah Prep: Cut the dry loofah sponge into 8 even pieces by cutting once vertically then cutting each half into 4 pieces. Next, add the loofah sponge pieces to water to reconstitute and remove seeds as needed (this is a natural vegetable product so you may have seeds). Towel-dry each loofah piece to remove excess water. Set aside.

STEP ONE: Cut the soap base into 1 inch cubes and divide equally into 2 microwave safe glass containers.

STEP TWO: Melt the first container of soap in the microwave on 30 second bursts on high, stirring in between bursts with a spoon, until the soap is fully melted. It took us about 1-1/2 minutes total to melt 1 lb of soap.

STEP THREE: Slice off a sliver of the Tangerine Wow color block and mix a small amount into the first container of melted soap until you achieve a bright orange hue. What you see is what you get with these colorants so feel free to add more if you want a brighter color.

STEP FOUR: Add 4 droppers full of fragrance oil to the melted orange soap base and stir until the fragrance oil is fully distributed (about 12 ml).

STEP FIVE: Repeat steps 2, 3, and 4 using the Electric Bubble Gum color block and your second container of soap.

STEP SIX: Place 1 loofah sponge in each rectangle mold. It’s ok if the loofah sponges are still a little damp. Trim the sponges if needed.

STEP SEVEN: Pour the pink soap into 4 molds over the loofah sponge only filling up the molds half way. Next, pour the orange soap on top of the pink soap to fill the mold all the way to the top. Repeat this step for the remaining 4 soap molds pouring the orange soap first and the pink soap second. Spritz all of the soaps with rubbing alcohol to eliminate bubbles.

If the soap cooled down too much in between pours, just pop it back in the microwave on 20 to 30 second bursts.

STEP EIGHT: Let the soap harden for 12–24 hours before unmolding. The soap is ready to use right away or add the raffia and labels to the soap mold and give them away as Christmas gifts.

lavender-bath-bombslavender bath bombs instructions

Bath Bomb Instructions

The Bath Bomb instructions are also provided in the Handmade Beauty Box kit and also available, if want to smell awesome check these perfume duplicates.

Match up the bath bomb molds so they stick together (male + female). You’ll thank yourself for doing this ahead of time before
you get your hands messy.

Ingredients and Supplies Needed:

  • 16 oz Sodium Bicarbonate (Baking Soda)
  • 8 oz Citric Acid
  • 1 gram Blue Mica
  • 1 oz Witch Hazel (in spray bottle)
  • 1/2 oz Lavender & Herb Fragrance Oil (or use regular Lavender Lavender Essential Oil if you don’t have the kit)
  • eye dropper
  • 2 medium size Mixing Bowls
  • Rubber Gloves (optional)
  • Mask (if you have sensitivities to powders)

Bath Bomb Instructions:

STEP ONE: Add all of the Sodium Bicarbonate and all of the Citric Acid into a mixing bowl and stir with your hands or whisk until all of the clumps have dissipated. A clumpy mixture = clumpy bath bombs, so it’s important to eliminate all of the large clumps.

STEP TWO: Separate the powdered mixture into two bowls. You’ll end up with about 1.5 cups in each bowl.

STEP THREE: Add all of the Blue Mica to the first bowl and leave the second bowl uncolored. Thoroughly mix in the
colorant.

STEP FOUR: using an eye dropper, add 4 ml of Lavender and Herb Fragrance Oil to each bowl of bath bomb mixture. Mix thoroughly. If you
want a stronger scented bath bomb, add up to 8 ml of fragrance oil per bowl.

STEP FIVE: Once the fragrance oil is fully incorporated, add 5-10 spritzes of Witch Hazel to the first bowl. Keep adding Witch Hazel until there’s enough moisture to allow the mixture to stick together when you squeeze a fistful (it should stick together when you squeeze the mixture in the palm of your hand). Repeat this step with the second bowl of bath bomb mixture.

The key to getting the right amount of Witch Hazel is really trial and error. We put too much in our mixture and they bombs started fizzing once we packed the mixture in the molds. To compensate for this, we waited a few minutes to let the mixture expand in each mold side and then used a knife to scrape off the extra before putting both sides together.

STEP SIX: Press both sides of the mold together until they snap together.

Leave the bath bomb in the mold for about an hour then slowly and carefully unmold. We left ours overnight.

Print out these cute labels for an extra special touch.

When you are reading to use your bath bombs, add one bath bomb to a warm bath, let dissolve, and then relax in the tub! We use ours in our Whirlpool but only use a few pinches. The force of the Whirlpool water makes triple the amount of bubbles you would get in a regular bathtub.

Peppermint or Lavender Foot Cream Recipe

The foot cream was a recipe we received from Nutiva who provided the coconut oil for our use.

Lavender Foot Cream Recipe

An amazing blend of coconut oil, shea butter and lavender essential oil to revitalize tired feet. Shea Butter is available at most natural foods stores or online. Remember, a homemade beauty product like this that doesn’t have any preservatives in it will last from 6 months to a year but no longer. You don’t want anything funky growing in it so discard products after that time. The lavender oil gives you a calming effect but you can also substitute peppermint essential oil for a wonderful, tingling sensation for tired feet.

Recipe yields one 4oz. jar

Ingredients:

  • 2 Tbsp Nutiva Organic Coconut Oil
  • 5 Tbsp Shea Butter (2.5 ounces)
  • 40 drops Peppermint Essential Oil (or Lavender Essential oil)
  • 4 oz jar (we used 4 oz Ball Crystal Jelly jars and purchased white screw-on storage caps)

Directions:

1. In a large sauce pan or dutch oven pan boil water and turn off the heat. Put the Shea butter in a heavy glass bowl and set the bowl on top of the pan. Stir the Shea butter continuously until it is just softened. Be careful not to melt the Shea butter. Heat just enough to blend easily. Alternatively, you can soften the Shea Butter in the microwave on a very low temperature for about 30 seconds.

2. Remove the bowl from the pan and place on the counter on a hot pad. Add the Nutiva Coconut Oil.

If your mixture doesn’t firm up, freeze the mixture for 5 to 10 minutes and whip it again.

3. Using an electric mixer, blend the coconut oil and Shea butter on low to medium speed until well incorporated, 1 to 2 minutes. Use a spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl and avoid having any clumps in the final product.

4. Increase the speed to medium for several minutes until the mixture is thick and buttery. Continue to incorporate the ingredients by scraping the sides of the bowl with a spatula.

5. Add the essential oil and blend to incorporate. The whole mixing process should take 5 to 6 minutes.

6. Transfer the mixture to your for easy scooping and seal.

Note: If you keep your house 73º (or cooler), you’ll want to store it in an open top container since the coconut oil will harden up at that temperature.

1 thought on “Beauty & Food Recipes from our DIY Mid-Winter Social”

  1. Love my peppermint foot cream – very soothing! And thanks for a fun afternoon. It was great to get out in this cold snowy winter! Enjoyed Greg’s guacamole with na’an bread for dipping.

    Reply

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