There was really no way I could do a Cocoa Coconut theme and not do a lip balm. Cocoa Coconut practically begs to be lip-balm-ized! Since we're in the midst of ultra-dry wintery weather right now, I opted to make this a Cocoa Coconut Sticky Lip Balm because when it is...
DIY Homemade Christmas Gift Ideas: 2020 Edition
Hey Bees! Welcome to the 2020 Humblebee & Me Holiday Gift Guide 🎁 This year has undoubtedly been a strange one, and this holiday season is looking like it’ll be very different from last year. This will be the first Christmas I’ve spent away from my family, and undoubtedly the quietest holiday season I’ve ever had. The distance has meant lots of gifts needed to be made and mailed well in advance, so it’s a good thing I usually start working on Christmas formulations in September! I’ve used this year’s themes—Cocoa Coconut & Ice Palace—to explore all kinds of fun formulations, like a brand-new emulsified body butter, a hand-shaped sulfate-free shampoo bar, a simple 6-ingredient conditioner bar, and a twist on classically giftable lip balm. I hope you’ll find some wonderfully giftable things here—I know many of these formulations are already in the mail, heading to my loved ones ❤️ Happy making!
Looking for more ideas? Check out the gift guides from some previous years:
- DIY Homemade Christmas Gift Ideas: 2019 Edition
- DIY Homemade Christmas Gift Ideas: 2018 Edition
- DIY Homemade Christmas Gift Ideas: 2017 Edition
- DIY Homemade Christmas Gift Ideas: 2016 Edition
- DIY Homemade Christmas Gift Ideas: 2015 Edition
- Gift Ideas for DIYers: 2018 Edition
- Gift Ideas for DIYers (2016)
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Cocoa Coconut Projects
Cocoa Coconut Sticky Lip Balm
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Cocoa Coconut Simple Conditioner Bars
If you've been interested in making a solid conditioner bar, but have been intimidated by the long ingredient lists on the formulations I've shared in the past, this post is for you! These beautiful Cocoa Coconut Simple Conditioner Bars are made from just six...
Cocoa Coconut Rich Cream Facial Cleanser
Today's Coconut Cocoa Rich Cream Facial Cleanser has a decadent, rich skin feel with a lotion-y consistency and offers fabulous yet gentle cleansing. It's also a bit of a riff on the two rich cream cleansers I shared earlier this year—Rose & Honey and Whipped...
Cocoa Coconut Vegan Body Butter Bars
Today's DIY is part of our ongoing Cocoa Coconut theme—we're melting up some stunning Cocoa Coconut Vegan Body Butter Bars that put silky cocoa butter and mouthwatering coconut oil on a pedestal so they can shine. You'll only need six or seven ingredients to make...
Popping Cocoa Coconut Bath Salts
These beautiful and fun Popping Cocoa Coconut Bath Salts are the latest addition to this year's Cocoa Coconut Holiday 2020 theme! And yes—they do pop! They pop and fizz and crackle like an indulgent magic trick when added to your bathwater. In addition to the popping...
Cocoa Coconut Emulsified Body Butter
If you love The Body Shop's body butters, you are going to love this Cocoa Coconut Emulsified Body Butter! Fragrant coconut oil and cocoa butter star, making up a full 40% of this formulation. This Cocoa Coconut Emulsified Body Butter has much of the richness of a...
Vegan Cocoa Coconut Nanaimo Bar Soap
Welcome to our first project of the holiday 2020 making season—Vegan Cocoa Coconut Nanaimo Bar Soap! These decadent bars of soap are part of our cocoa/coconut theme (I announced both themes on YouTube last weekend—check out the video here!), and channel my favourite...
Ice Palace Projects
Ice Palace Sulfate-Free Shampoo Bar
Today we're mashing up a beautiful Ice Palace Sulfate-Free Shampoo Bar. You don't need to melt anything and you don't need a press (you don't even need a mould!). Just mix and mash everything together until you have a smooth, workable dough, shape that into some sort...
Ice Palace Ceramide Glow Gel Cream
This Ice Palace Ceramide Glow Gel Cream is packed with great-for-skin actives and just a hint of mica for skin that positively glows. I was inspired to create a complexion-enhancing moisturizer by products like Charlotte Tilbury's Hollywood Flawless Filter and...
Ice Palace Fizzing Shimmering Bath Dust
This Ice Palace Fizzing Shimmering Bath Dust has all the fizzy fun of a bath bomb, combined with the ease and indulgence of bath salts. There's no moulding or pressing—just massage everything together, leave the mixture out to dry for a day or two, and you've got...
Ice Palace Bath Bombs
One of the things I absolutely have to make every year as part of my holiday DIYing is bath bombs—my mom loves them, so I need to make sure she's set for the following year 😊 This year's holiday bath bombs are Ice Palace themed, with a fizzy surprise in the...
Ice Palace Body Wash
We're getting all kinds of sudsy today with a pearlescent and bubbly Ice Palace Body Wash! If you're generally a fan of creamy body washes, this one is just the thing—it kicks off heaps of fluffy bubbles, smells wonderfully refreshing, and looks a bit like a liquid...
Ice Palace Body Glow Lotion
We're continuing our Ice Palace theme today with this lovely Ice Palace Body Glow Lotion! This one is really neat in the skin feel/consistency department. In regards to viscosity and absorption speed, it's more like a mid-weight lotion—but the richness is closer to...
Ice Palace Soap
Welcome to holiday soap (and holiday theme) #2 for 2020; Ice Palace Soap! This year's Ice Palace theme is all about embracing the cool, sparkling beauty of ice and ice sculptures. This cold processed soap channels dazzling wintery wonder with wispy cool-toned swirls...
Other Awesome Gift-Worthy Projects from 2020
Gentle Clay Facial Cleansing Bar
Today we're squishing up a creamy off-white Gentle Clay Facial Cleansing Bar, starring velvety white kaolin clay and a gentle surfactant blend that kicks off dense, rich lather. You don't need any heat or even a mould to make these—just a bowl, a dust mask, and a pair...
Creamy Oat & Shea Face Mask
If you're looking for an indulgent facial, I think this Creamy Oat & Shea Face Mask is just the thing. A rich base of shea butter and safflower oil suspends a blend of soothing, moisturizing ingredients to create a really decadent masking experience. Try using...
Bubbly Bath Dough
I had a heck of a time trying to name this fun DIY! Generally speaking, it's a sort of play-dough for the bath or shower that can be sculpted into whatever your heart desires, used as a body wash, and/or crumbled under a running tap to create all kinds of bubbles....
Hyaluronic Acid B5 Facial Serum
If you've been reading Humblebee & Me for more than a few weeks, I'm sure you've heard me say that Calgary (where I live) is dry. It's the kind of dry where bread usually goes stale rather than sprouting mould. If I visit somewhere humid and buy crackers they are...
Gold Dust Lip Cream
Today we're fully embracing summer with a rich, sparkly Gold Dust Lip Cream ✨ A creamy base carries a generous helping of shimmery gold things to bring some beautiful 24 karat loveliness to your days. Enjoy! Want to watch this project instead of reading it?...
Passionfruit Coconut Vegan Body Butter
If you've been dreaming of enveloping yourself in tropical scented wonderfulness, this beautiful all-natural Passionfruit Coconut Vegan Body Butter is for you. A base of beachy coconut oil and passionfruit oil is thickened with a combination of stearic acid and...
Nourishing Lip Mask
Today we're blending up a simple, all-natural, Nourishing Lip Mask. I've called it a lip mask, but honestly, it's a super versatile salve for all kinds of dry, irritated skin. It stars a short and sweet list of rich, soothing emollients to create a gorgeous ointment...
Solid Dishwashing Brick
This Solid Dishwashing Brick is the solid, even lower waste sister of 2018's Super Concentrated Lemon Dishwashing Paste. It's also super concentrated, but significantly more solid (surprise, ha) and doesn't require any packaging. I've been storing it in a small...
Silk & Shine Conditioning Hair Mask
This Silk & Shine Conditioning Hair Mask is a decadent hair treat, leaving your hair noticeably more shiny and manageable. It's packed with nourishing oils, rich conditioners, and goodies like silk and panthenol to leave your hair feeling its best. Simply work a...
Satsuma Shower Gel
I'm pretty excited to share this Satsuma Shower Gel with you guys—mostly for two reasons. Reason #1: I was utterly obsessed with The Body Shop's "satsuma" line as a kid, and I've had this gorgeous satsuma dupe fragrance oil for years, meaning to make satsuma-y things...
Chocolate Ganache Fizzing Bath Biscuits
We're doing a bit of calorie-free "baking" today with some downright delicious Chocolate Ganache Fizzing Bath Biscuits! These fun, fizzy bath treats were inspired by a request from Bethany + some LUSH products I've been ogling for a while. When I first started work on...
Intense Hand Rescue Cream
This decadent Intense Hand Rescue Cream became an instant favourite of mine while it was still warm in the beaker. It's thick and rich, with a very luxurious skin feel and stunning slip. It's also loaded with all kinds of great-for-skin goodies like colloidal oatmeal,...
Cinnamon Cocoa Massage Bars
I had a lot of fun creating these deceptively simple Cinnamon Cocoa Massage Bars. They're silky smooth, cocoa and cinnamon-scented body butter bars that liquify readily on the skin, transforming into massage oil. Inspired by a LUSH product, I had a lot of fun...
Pink Clay Mosaic Shampoo Bars
Today we're squishin' and mixin' up a batch of pretty pink sulphate-free shampoo bars, featuring Australian pink clay and a blend of gentle surfactants. These beautiful bars kick out all kinds of gorgeous, creamy lather, and leave your hair wonderfully clean. They...
Hand Wash for Lots of Handwashing
While frequent, thorough hand washing has always been a very important part of personal hygiene practices, its importance has skyrocketed recently as COVID-19 spreads around the world. Proper handwashing works better than hand sanitizer, but you do need to do it...
Glossy Lip Stain
Today's DIY was inspired by a lip gloss advert I saw some time last year. It was for the Glossier lip gloss, and for some reason, the ad caught my eye. I clicked through and took a look at the ingredients, and the first ingredient was "Hydrogenated Polyisobutene"—and...
Argan Rose Pressed Shampoo Bars
These beautiful Argan Rose Pressed Shampoo Bars were inspired by a popular LUSH product, and I've had a ton of fun developing and testing this formulation. It is structured very differently from other shampoo bars I've shared, with no melted fatty hardeners like cocoa...
Little E’s Lemon Shea Hand Lotion
Today's lotion is one I created at the request of some friends. Their daughter (Little E) had painfully dry, cracked hands through the winter, and she really didn't like to use lotion as most of it stung and hurt. That really resonated with me as that's what my hands...
Featherweight Hair Oil
Today we're creating an ultra-lightweight hair oil that's designed for hair that's really not very tolerant of oils (like mine). Some of my favourite-for-hair oils are blended into a silky, fast-evaporating base to create a water-free hair oil that smooths and...
Moisturizing Repair Cream
Welcome to our first formulation of 2020—a beautiful Moisturizing Repair Cream! I am so excited about this rich, nourishing hand cream. It's positively perfect for this time of year, helping protect skin against the winter dry and cold. Our two power ingredients are...
