An Adventure in Homemade Sugar Scrub-making

I needed to make some favors for a Bachelorette Spa Party I'm hosting this weekend, so I searched Pinterest and gathered a few recipes to try. Thank goodness I started a few weeks ago, because my first three tries were disastrous...

First, I tried to make a Little Birdie Secret's Coconut Ginger Scrub. That one turned out smelling like Chinese food. Strike 1.

Then, I tried using a pre-made scent from Hobby Lobby called "Invigorating Blend." I didn't use any of the turbinado sugar this time, just white. I found a gorgeous pink food-coloring gel and dyed it hot pink. It smelled ok and was the perfect pink tint; however,... it may or may not have dyed my skin when I tested it out. Strike 2.

So, I tried again. This time, I used a vegan cane sugar, which I thought had bigger crystals than regular sugar (better for exfoliation). It doesn't. With this one, I used a lavender essential oil fragrance blend I found at Michael's and instead of food coloring, used soap dye. I used about half the bottle and the mixture refused to turn purple. I don't know where I went wrong. Maybe the dye wasn't strong enough? Whatever. Strike 3.

So, my final attempt, I came up with what I think is a pretty good base recipe.

1 1/2 c. white sugar
1/2 c. kosher or epsom salt (I used kosher)
1 c. coconut oil (if your coconut oil is solid, don't heat it up to melt it, or you might end up cooking the sugar when you combine them.)
1 T. almond or vitamin e oil

Most recipes have a 2:1 ratio for sugar (or salt) to oil.

Once you've got your base, you can scent it however you like. I ended up using about 30 drops of the lavender oil I bought and used about as many drops of liquid purple food coloring. It still didn't really come out with a vivid color, but I'm not risking skin-dying scrub again.

I drew inspiration from Coordinately Yours and The Gunny Sack for labeling and decorating them.