With the economy in its fragile state and the holidays upon us, most people are even more strapped for cash than normal. When you’ve made your list and checked it twice only to find that you have far more nice than naughty to play Santa to this year, it may be cause for panic.

Instead, why not go back to the true spirit of the holiday season and give gifts from the heart – more specifically, homemade beauty booty that can be made in custom scents, shades and quantities for a fraction of what you’d pay to buy big name brands for every good girl or boy on your list?

While several companies offer DIY (Do It Yourself) Kits, it’s just as easy and just as fun to work with ingredients that you may already have handy. Plus, mismatched bottles and jars can be another fun way to customize the gift to the recipient.

Before you start, make sure you have a general idea of what you want to do and how many friends or family members you plan to gift with your custom creations. If you’re doing lip balms or other cosmetic items, you’ll probably want to go ahead and purchase new, unused containers that suit your specific needs from a company like Mystic Mountain Sage or DIY Cosmetics. For homemade scrubs, masks and salts, finding unusual containers is part of the fun. Just make sure that any container you use has been thoroughly washed and dried, and any old labels or stickers have been removed. You may consider…

• Glass mustard or jelly/jam jars
• Diner style ketchup bottles or old school Coke bottles
• Shot sized alcohol bottles (assuming you’re of age to drink) or even full sized ones if you’re feeling generous
• Glass spice rack jars (I think the ones with cork tops are particularly cute, especially bunched together in sets of three or five)
• Oil and vinegar bottles (some world market type stores carry sets of these for salad, in a cute little holder)

Craft stores, home improvement warehouses, world market stores and kitchen supply stores often have the best containers, but if you’re really on a budget don’t overlook thrift shops, dollar stores, yard sales and restaurant supply warehouses (which, depending on how many containers you need, will often offer a better price for the bulk purchase).

Next, make sure you have all the supplies you’ll need. Lip balms will often need flavored/scented oils (My Lip Stuff offers a great selection in their DIY Lip Balm Section) while lotions, scrubs and bath salts may need a scented oil (Mystic Mountain Sage has a fantastic selection, but you can usually purchase these on the fly at natural food , whole food, health food and vitamin stores. Just make sure the oil you’re using is safe for contact with the area of skin your gift will target). If you’re making shimmer powders or shadows, make sure you have all your preservatives as well as any mica or glitter you need. And don’t forget accessories! Labels for your jars, ribbons, bows or tags to decorate, brushes or puffs for powders, even little wooden scoops (like these at Artistic Gift Baskets) to attach to jars or bottles of bath salts.

Now you’re ready to start making homemade lotions, potions and beauty brews for your friends and family!

Flower Power Glycerin Soap

This one is cute and easily customizable, based on the type of flowers you choose to use.

2 cups of coarsely chopped glycerin soap base (found at most craft stores)

A few drops of essential/perfume oil (the more you use, the more heavily scented your soap will be)

Soap molds (also available at craft stores, but in a pinch, consider using a lightly greased muffin tin. Also, candy molds often work well)

Put your glycerin in a microwave-safe bowl, and nuke in one minute intervals until fully melted. Stir in your essential or perfume oils. Lightly “grease” your soap mold or muffin tin with almond oil, and pour your melted soap into each one until it’s about half full. Let cool for roughly ten minutes before pressing your flowers into each soap, and then filling the mold/tin the rest of the way with glycerin. Let cool completely before wrapping in plastic wrap, cute squares of fabric or festive tissue paper.

Go the extra mile: Before each soap cools, press a chopstick, Popsicle stick or small wooden dowel painted green into each one. When cool, add artificial leaves and place in a pretty vase or wrap with cellophane for a soap bouquet. And, while you could put anything you wanted to in these soaps, from sea shells to toys, for an extra special touch, write your wishes, thoughts or blessings for each friend on a small piece of heavy paper with a waterproof pen and roll up into a tight scroll.

Chocolate Chip Lip Treat

Festive and fun! Sure to be appreciated by anyone on your holiday list!

You’ll need:

1 tablespoon of chocolate chips (milk, white, dark, semi-sweet – heck, you could even use butterscotch or peanut butter!)

1/2 tablespoon cocoa butter

In a double boiler slowly stir together your ingredients, stirring continuously over medium/low heat until melted (don’t have a double boiler? Use a medium pan, floating in a large pan or skillet of water. Just make sure no water gets in your smaller pan, where the ingredients go or you’ll have separation issues). Pour into your lip balm containers and cool completely before capping.

Go the extra mile: Add a couple of drops of flavored oil like peppermint, cherry or caramel to your mixture. Also, consider adding fun stickers to the tops of your containers or, for a festive party favor, place in a large candy dish and let guests pick their own!

Dead Sea Bath Salts

Fun and easy to do, especially in large quantities, just by doubling or tripling the recipe!

*Note -- If you can’t find sea salts or Dead Sea salt, just substitute more of your epsom salts.

Combine salts in a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Separate into smaller bowls and add your food coloring – as little or as much as you like, depending on how deep you want the color to be. When the salts are thoroughly saturated with color, stir in your citric acid and then your essential oils. When everything is completely mixed, pour into jars or bottles of your choosing.

Go the extra mile: Layer salts in different colors or scents in the same jar for a rainbow effect that’s pretty to look at and even more fun to use.

Essential Oils – How to choose

Not sure which scents you want to use? Here are a few and what they’re considered most useful for.

• Chamomile – Relaxing, soothing
• Cherry – Uplifting, sensual
• Eucalyptus – Uplifting, stimulating, invigorating
• Jasmine – Sensual, romantic
• Lavender – Relaxing
• Lemon – Uplifting, energizing
• Lime – Uplifting, refreshing
• Neroli – Refreshing, cooling
• Peppermint – Stimulating, invigorating
• Rose – Uplifting, sensual, romantic
• Sandalwood – Relaxing, sensual
• Tangerine – Uplifting, energizing, refreshing
• Vanilla – Harmonizing, sensual
• Ylang Ylang -- sensual

A few combinations to try:

• Vanilla and Peppermint – a candy cane inspired scent
• Jasmine, Rose, Vanilla and Sandalwood – a warm, highly sensual scent
• Cherry, Lime, Lemon and Orange/Tangerine – a gumdrop inspired scent
• Peppermint and Eucalyptus – a cooling, refreshing scent – good for morning showers!
• Lavender, Sandalwood and Chamomile – a relaxing scent – good for bedtime blends!

The Grand Gesture

• Purchasing unscented lotion (available at Sally Beauty Supply, Body and Soul, etc.) and adding your extra essential/perfume oils and even mica or cosmetic grade glitter for a softly scented, super shimmery custom lotion. You can get travel sized bottles at beauty supply, dollar and discount stores.
• Mix almond, vitamin E, olive and essential oils and place in empty nail polish bottles for custom cuticle oils. Add small dried flowers for extra oomph. Or, place in small applicator bottles for homemade hot oil hair treatments. You can get both kinds of bottles from The Supply Source.
• Beeswax and cocoa butter with a few drops of essential oils also make nice, solid cuticle treatments or treatments for dry, cracking heels! Pour into gloss pots instead of bottles and let cool. Consider adding tea tree (melaleuca) oil to aid in healing dry, cracked skin.
• Extra mica or glitter can be added to unscented baby powder for an all-over shimmer powder.
• Mix and match extra essential oils to come up with custom perfumed oil blends. Use dark, amber colored dram bottles to help prolong the life of your special scents.

Something Extra Special

• Bath fizzies and small soaps fit nicely in the clear, plastic, ready-to-fill ornaments found at most craft stores. Fill them to your liking and hang them from your tree, letting friends, family and party goers pick their own beauty bauble to take home before they go.
• Wrap in festive paper and stack lip gloss pots or eyeshadows to make gift towers. Taper them for a Yule tree effect, or keep them all white and add the trimmings to make your own frosty snowwomen. Use a piece of double stick tape between layers to help them stay together while you’re working and until they're unwrapped.
• For bath salts, tie a “scoop” that coordinates with your container or scent around the neck. Summery, ocean scented salts might go in an old fashioned Coke bottle with a sea shell for a scoop, while a “Days of the Week” set of salts, in five or seven spice rack jars might warrant funky, mismatched teaspoons. Be creative!
• Tired of the same old Secret Santa/White Elephant game? Wrap your gifts in colorful paper or cellophane, making sure to include a fun fact about one of your friends. Then have each friend pick one at random. Let your friends guess who the fact is about, passing the gift from person to person until it makes it to its final destination. This is only fun if you use an obscure tidbit that’s not easily guessable (and still open to public knowledge, so to speak), so ask your friends in advance what one bit of trivia they doubt all your/their other friends would know and make sure you keep track!
• Make soaps in the shape of gingerbread women (or other festive shapes – think cookie cutters) and decorate them with brightly colored bath salts, glitter, or smaller bits of soap (for buttons, eyes) and display like cookies. Let friends and family take their pick.

Do gift baskets with a theme!

• Avid gardener on your list? Present their gifts in a wicker window box. Add jam jars of salts and scrubs, along with a cuticle balm or oil for dry, soil-ridden hands and seed packets, gloves (to protect hands and nails), sunglasses and a cute hat (to keep the harsh rays of the sun off their face). Or, a soap bouquet in a funky flower pot with all the trimmings.
• Want to kiss the chef (without actually kissing them)? How about fun, food-inspired balms and glosses, salts and scrubs in spice rack jars with teaspoons and handwritten recipes for edible treats, as well as the ones you made them, in a nice recipe box or spice rack?
• Boys, boys, boys (because, let’s face it, they never grow up!). For any handy man in your life, try a tool/tackle box packed with lotions and soaps (to take care of greasy hands), salves and balms for dry hands, feet and lips and even scrubs to get rid of grease, oil or dirt. You might add small (blunt) screws, nuts, metal washers or doll house sized tools to handmade soaps or make soaps in pine tree shaped molds and string together (think of the air freshener he probably has hanging from his rear view mirror) or use thoroughly cleaned oil bottles (break out the baby bottle brush ladies! If you do this, you want to make sure that bottle is clean enough to drink out of, figuratively speaking of course) for salts. Keep scents lighter (most men like vanilla, clove/pumpkin pie scents, balsam/pine and clean, citrus type scents), keep packaging simple and in neutral colors, get creative with names (“Tool Man’s Tonic” or “Diana’s Dodge Dirt Dissolver”), consider adding a “User’s Manual” with instructions for use, and depending on your relationship with your special guy, a coupon for an “Instructional Course” on how to use his new beauty bounty for the first time. Add tools, tackle and, if your man has a sense of humor, band-aids and other first aid fixings to help round it out.

If you’d rather have a step-by-step kit with everything included you may check out some of these awesome sites –

My Lip Stuff – Offers DIY custom lip balm kits in several sizes, depending on your needs.

DIYCosmetics  – Offers DIY mineral makeup and lip product kits.

Making Cosmetics  – Offers mineral makeup, lip care, moisturizer and shimmering body butter kits, as well as tons of recipes, step-by-step instructions and everything you need ingredient-wise to step out on your own.

Don’t fret the recession this holiday season. Have a blast making your own cosmetic goodies for friends and family, which will be guaranteed to leave a much longer lasting impression than just any old cosmetic item. Just be sure you save some for yourself!

(Hey! It’s not selfish! After all that hard work, you deserve a treat! If all else fails, just use my Dad’s excuse for anything he tries before the rest of us get to it – you had to test it out to make sure it was safe for everyone else!)

*Thanks to Beauty Magic by Jennifer Knapp for recipe inspiration!