Homemade Christmas Presents 2011 - Bath Salts

Last year, I did crochet for my homemade presents, but this year I have babies and therefore no time.  I still wanted to give homemade Christmas presents, though, as the thoughtfulness of homemade compensates for the lack of money spent.  Minting Nickels has a post on gifts in a jar, which inspired me for this year.  She likes food gifts, but I prefer not to give food, since most of the recipes seem really unhealthy, and because taste preferences and food allergies vary widely and I would hate to get them wrong.  However, she included a link to Martha Stewart's bath fizzies, which I thought looked amazing.  But then I found out that 5 pounds of citric acid cost $20.  Since Martha was talking cups, and this was weight, I wasn't even sure that 5 pounds would be enough for the 7 people I wanted to gift.

So I decided to be less ambitious and make bath salts instead.  I used Martha's recipe, but I substituted ice cream salt for sea salt.  I figure that salt is salt and, as long as no one tries to eat the bath salts, there's no difference except for the massive price difference.  I might try pickling salt if I did it again, since the rock salt was pretty large, and so the salts did not look homogenized because my Epson salt was fine.  They came out really cute:

I especially liked the striped effect I got from layering colored salts and uncolored ones.

Cost: $4.16 each; $29.17 total
Rock Salt: 3.82
Epsom salt: 3.56
Baking Soda:1.06
Essential Oil: 7.89
Food coloring: 3.12
Cute Jars: 9.72


As you can see, the jars were a third of the cost; I could have saved even more by reusing jars.  This was a rush project, though, and I didn't have time to come up with jars this year.  Next year, I think I'll try the bath fizzies, and save up jars, and it will probably end up costing about the same, although, if I have some of the essential oil left, it will cost less.  I've got nearly the whole bottle left, but I use a Fuzzi Bunz Diaper Bag, which has a place to put essential oils to cover the diaper smell, and I am planning to try it out.  If it works, I expect that my essential oil will be depleted by next year.