3 DIY Herbal Skincare Gifts for the Holiday Season

As this year is coming to an end, we are busy getting ready for the holidays. To show appreciation for our loved ones in a more meaningful way, creating DIY herbal skincare gifts during the holiday season is a wonderful option! Furthermore, it is a great opportunity to take time for yourself to slow down and enjoy the creative process. These three DIY herbal wellness product ideas are amazing holiday gifts for your friends and family, or even just a lovely treat for yourself over the holidays!

3 DIY Herbal Skincare Gifts

Christmas Tree Bath Powder

The scent of evergreens evokes a festive, seasonal feeling for many. How about bathing in it? This Christmas Tree Bath Powder comes with moistening, soothing and relaxing ingredients and smells like a cozy Christmas Eve. Definitely a treat for mind and body throughout the holidays and a great option for skincare gifts for your family and friends!

Powdered Oats

This simple ingredient has a reliably soothing effect, leaving your skin feeling moisturized and nourished (Kurtz & Wallo, 2007). When ground and soaked in water, oats create a thick, soothing demulcent emollient that is perfect to create a milky bath and calm dry, irritated, or itchy skin (Romm, 2003).

Epsom Salt

A magnesium salt, also called Epsom or bitter salt, can be particularly helpful for soothing muscular pain or tension and joint inflammation, as this mineral gets absorbed through the skin (Low Dog, 2016). It’s beneficial for overall recovery, leaving you feeling wonderfully relaxed over the busy holidays.

Spruce Needles

The smell of spruce after a good rain is soothing and reminiscent of nature in its purest form— the same if used in a bathtub. In addition, the containing volatile oils allow you to breathe freely and also soothe the spirit, leaving you feeling calm and grounded.

Green Clay 

Clay powders can be used to cleanse, nourish, exfoliate, and purify the skin, drawing out excess oil and impurities (Williams & Haydel, 2010). Green clay is even more detoxifying and toning, but any other clay would work too.

Olive Oil 

As a carrier oil, olive oil moisturizes without adding heaviness and works great for all skin types.

Pine Essential Oil

To add an uplifting and clearing scent that gets you in the holiday mood, this essential oil is a great choice. Pine is traditionally known as a support for coughs, colds, allergies, and urinary tract and sinus infections. Topically, pine is used to address skin infections and to lessen joint inflammation in arthritic conditions (Moore, 2003). Of course, it is always a good idea to be mindful of essential oil safety. You can read this post, A Guide to Essential Oil Safety if you are looking for an overview of essential oil safety.

Cardamom 

To finish up this blend, cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum) seed pods add not only a lovely festive smell to the mixture but also make this powder mix even more beautiful!
This herb fully unfolds its aromatic, moving, and relaxant properties when added to the warm bath water, creating a wonderfully comforting atmosphere.

Rosehip Face Serum

For everyone who struggles with keeping their face feeling fresh and moisturized during the cold winter season, this powerful serum will be a true blessing, and creating it as part of your DIY skincare gifts this season will bless your loved ones too!

Rosehip Seed Oil & Sea Buckthorn Seed Oil

These deeply nourishing seed oils are rich in unsaturated fatty acids, which help to decrease inflammation and boost overall skin health. The containing vitamin A and C help to delay the effects of skin aging, assists with cell regeneration, and increases collagen and elastin levels (Concha et al., 2004).

Besides that, sea buckthorn seed oil adds a lovely golden tint to the blend, which leaves your skin looking naturally sun-kissed and healthy.

Alkanet 

This colorful root adds a special red color to the blend, creating a perfect holiday look! However, rest-assured, the small amount of red tint of the oil, used in this recipe, will not leave any redness on your skin. Furthermore, alkanet has antimicrobial, demulcent, and vulnerary qualities, making it an excellent addition to the serum (Miczak, 2001).

Vitamin E Oil

As a powerful antioxidant, vitamin E helps to stabilize cell membranes and prevent oxidation to the fatty acids found in the skin. This inhibits collagen cross-linking which contributes to the appearance of aging (Schagen et al., 2012).

Rose Geranium Essential Oil

This essential oil not only adds a beautiful smell to the blend, but its antibacterial, antimicrobial, and antiseptic properties make it beneficial for reducing breakouts and skin irritation in general (Orchard et al., 2017).

Gingerbread Chocolate Bath Melt

This recipe might be too delicious to only use it for bathing and as part of making your DIY skincare gifts—it’s also perfect for all the chocolate lovers and sweet tooths out there! 

Cocoa Butter & Coconut Oil

These two ingredients are often used for winter holiday desserts but also work wonderfully to treat the skin from the outside. They are known to nourish the skin and improve elasticity. The fat in these two solid seed oils forms a protective barrier over the skin to hold in moisture.

Cocoa Powder

Chocolate is not only a delicious holiday treat—pure cocoa powder is rich in antioxidants, essential fatty acids and nutrients, which fight free radicals and can support the renewal of skin cells.

Gingerbread Spices

Warming herbs such as cloves, allspice, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, and red peppercorn can help the body feel comfortable, and the scent will lift your mood. 

Pink peppercorns (Schinus terebinthifolia)

Pink Pepper is the fruit of the Brazilian pepper tree. The berries have a pleasant fruity aroma with “woody” tones of pine needles. In terms of taste, the pink pepper is not at all spicy like regular black pepper and tastes resinous, fruity almost a little like the juniper berry.

It’s important to note that the fruit has an allergen possibility, especially from repeat exposure to skin. For anyone with allergies to cashew, mango, or severe reactions to poison ivy or poison oak, this ingredient should be avoided.

In Closing,

Creating these skincare gifts and embracing all the lovely seasonal aromas will definitely get you into the holiday mood! Plus, these gifts will be one-of-a-kind you can’t buy anywhere! So what are you waiting for? The holidays are around the corner and this is a wonderful opportunity to treat your loved ones with some comfort!

For more inspiration and ideas, check out the Botanical Skin Care Recipe Book, which features 194 favorite tried-and-tested herbal skin care recipes.

Happy Holidays!

For more DIY herbal gifts, check out: 9 Herbal DIYs for the Holidays

REFERENCES

Concha, J., Soto, C., Chamy, R., & Zuniga, M.E. (2004). Enzymatic pretreatment on rose-hip oil extraction: Hydrolysis and pressing conditions. ​Journal of the American Oil Chemists’ Society, 81(6), 549–552.​https://doi.org/10.1007/s11746-006-0939-y

Kurtz, Ellen & Wallo, Warren. (2007). Colloidal Oatmeal: History, Chemistry and Clinical Properties. Journal of drugs in dermatology : JDD. 6. 167-70.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6434542_Colloidal_Oatmeal_History_Chemistry_and_Clinical_Properties

Low Dog, T. (2016). Fortify your life. Washington DC: National Geographic Society.

Miczak, M.A. (2001). Henna’s secret history: The history, mystery and folklore of henna. San Jose, CA: Writers Club Press.

Moore, M. (2003). Medicinal Plants of the Mountain West. Museum of New Mexico Press.

Orchard A., Van Vuuren S.(2017). Commercial essential oils as potential antimicrobials to treat skin diseases .Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2017, 1–92. https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/4517971
Romm, A. (2003). ​Naturally healthy babies and children​. Berkeley, CA: Celestial Arts.

Schagen, S K.., Zampeli, V. A., Makrantonaki, E., & Zouboulis, C. C. (2012). Discovering the link between nutrition and skin aging. Dermato-Endocrinology , 4(3), 298–307.
https://doi.org/10.4161/derm.22876

Williams, L.B., & Haydel, S.E. (2010). Evaluation of the medicinal use of clay minerals as antibacterial agents. International Geology Review, 52(7-8), 745–770. http://doi.org/10.1080/00206811003679737