The expensive part of a spa is the building. Almost everything they hand you inside it comes down to oats, salt, sugar, clay, a few drops of essential oil and something to put it in, and once you have seen the ingredient lists side by side that is hard to unsee. So this is a whole day’s worth of DIY spa day ideas, laid out in the order you would actually use them: a bath soak and a bath bomb to start, scrubs for face, hands and feet, masks for every skin type, then body butter and curl cream for afterwards, and the quiet extras that make it feel like a treatment and not a Tuesday. Frozen towels rolled like little burritos. Wax melts on the warmer. A tray to carry it all in. Most of it costs a few dollars and half an hour.
1. Luxurious DIY Spa Night at Home
Five treatments in the order a real spa would run them, which is the part most at-home routines skip. The milk and honey mask is a third of a cup of plain yogurt, two tablespoons of oatmeal, a teaspoon of honey and a quarter of a mashed banana, so the yogurt calms redness while the oats do the exfoliating. Then a lip scrub of raw sugar and coconut oil, a chamomile rinse that lifts gold out of blonde hair, and a hand and foot soak of hot water, Epsom salts, citrus slices and mint. Nothing on the list costs more than a supermarket run.
Get the full tutorial at Ashley Brooke Nicholas.
2. Frozen Eucalyptus Towels
Borrowed from a Key West hotel and worth stealing. A couple of cups of water, about ten drops of eucalyptus essential oil, then each washcloth goes in, gets wrung out, folded in half and rolled the opposite way so it comes out looking like a little burrito. They go on a cookie sheet in a single layer and freeze solid in a couple of hours. The trick worth knowing is at the other end: use the towel rolled and unroll it slowly as it thaws, because opening it out flat at the start means it warms up before you get anywhere.
Get the full tutorial at Simply Darrling.
3. Oatmeal Lavender Bath Soak
Four ingredients in a blender and the blender is the whole technique. A cup of quick oats, half a cup of Epsom salts, two tablespoons of baking soda and ten drops of lavender go in together and get pulsed until the oats are powder, which is what lets them dissolve in the water instead of sinking and clogging the drain. Half a cup to a cup per bath, then soak fifteen to twenty minutes. It keeps about three months sealed at room temperature, and for chicken pox or poison ivy the recipe adds four or five drops of tea tree oil.
Get the full tutorial at Beauty Crafter.
4. DIY Coffee Body Scrub
Used coffee grounds are the one spa ingredient most kitchens throw away every morning. This one is fine sugar, grounds, coconut oil, a pour of castile soap and a splash of vanilla, mixed straight in the jar so there is nothing to wash up afterwards. An old jam jar with the label soaked off is the container, which is where the smell of it hits you. It exfoliates without scratching, it rinses clean because of the soap, and a jar of it wrapped with twine is the handmade gift that actually gets used up.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
5. Warming Turmeric Pain Relief Balm
This is the one on the list that behaves like an actual treatment. Turmeric and cayenne are infused into coconut oil in a double boiler for a full hour on the lowest setting, strained through cheesecloth, then set with beeswax and cocoa butter and left alone for three or four hours. A pinch of black pepper goes in because it makes the turmeric work harder. Wear gloves, because cayenne on your fingers finds your eyes eventually, and spot test on the inside of your arm for twenty four hours before you use it anywhere that hurts.
Get the full tutorial at Garden Therapy.
6. DIY Brighten And Tighten Face Mask
One egg white, half a tablespoon of raw honey and half a tablespoon of fresh lemon juice, whipped with a fork for a minute or two until it goes foamy. Each one is doing a different job: the egg white tightens as it dries, the honey keeps skin comfortable, the lemon is what works on the marks old breakouts leave behind. Spread it as thick as it will go without dripping, keep it off the eye area, and leave it thirty minutes until it feels genuinely tight. Warm water and a washcloth to take it off, then a splash of cold. Use less lemon if your skin stings easily.
Get the full tutorial at The Kitchen McCabe.
7. DIY Home Spa Treatment
Eight small treatments meant to be run as one sitting, and simple enough that they were written for children to put together as a Mother’s Day surprise. Honey goes straight onto a clean face for ten minutes, gets rubbed in gentle circles with wet fingertips, then sits another five. Coconut oil goes on hands under disposable gloves with a warm heating pad over the top. Half a lemon smooths rough elbows. Cool cucumber slices go on tired eyes. Then a rose scented milk foot soak with a cornmeal scrub after it, a lavender water spray, and a lip scrub of brown sugar.
Get the full tutorial at Boulder Locavore.
8. DIY Candle Melts
Scent is half of what makes a room feel like a spa, and refilling a warmer from a shop is where that gets expensive. A cup of soy wax melts in a glass bowl in the microwave in about three minutes, takes fifteen to twenty drops of lavender oil, then pours into a silicone mold and hardens in roughly an hour. One cup gives eight melts. Use soy or beeswax rather than paraffin, which releases toxins when it is heated, and remember that essential oils are there for the smell here, not for any therapeutic claim.
Get the full tutorial at Create Craft Love.
9. Cucumber Face Mask for Oily and Acne-Prone Skin
Half a cucumber, two tablespoons of ground oatmeal, two teaspoons of lemon juice and a tablespoon of honey, blended for a few seconds until it is one paste. Cucumber is a natural astringent, which is why it belongs on oily skin rather than just over the eyes, and the oats give it enough grit to exfoliate the flaking that oily skin does anyway. Fifteen minutes, then cold water. Twice a month is plenty if your skin is sensitive, and because of the lemon it is a night mask, not a before-the-beach one.
Get the full tutorial at Glamcheck.
10. Day Spa At Home
The video item, and it is the one to watch rather than read. A professional esthetician runs a full at-home day spa on a small budget, and the things worth catching are the ones photographs never show: how she works a sugar scrub over the skin rather than at it, how she sets the bath up before she needs it, and the order she puts the whole session in. Her lemon sugar scrub is the standout. Dim light, a couple of drops of lavender or almond oil in the water, a handful of rose petals for the sake of it.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
11. Kiwi And Mint Infused Water
Every spa in the world puts a jug of this in the waiting room and this is the version that works. The first attempt failed: firm kiwi, unbruised mint, six hours of tasting, still water. The second one used a very ripe soft kiwi sliced thin and three mint sprigs crushed in a hand first, and it tasted of something after a single hour. Three or four kiwis to four cups of water, in the fridge overnight for the best of it. Ripe fruit and bruised herbs are the whole difference, which is worth knowing for any fruit you infuse.
Get the full tutorial at Happy Foods Tube.
12. Blueberry Sugar Scrub
It comes out a soft lilac, which is the reason to make this one over a plain sugar scrub, and the colour is mica powder rather than the fruit. Blueberry oil carries the scent. The thing worth stealing from this one is the essential-versus-carrier oil explanation: essential oils are concentrated enough to burn undiluted, carrier oils are mild and go straight on skin, and a scrub built on a carrier oil is the safer choice for a gift. Once a week is the ceiling, less if your skin is dry to start with.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
13. DIY Clay Face Mask
Two ingredients, and one of them is water. A tablespoon of European clay powder and a tablespoon of cold water mixed to a paste in a non-metal bowl, on with fingers or a clean makeup brush, off after fifteen minutes. If your skin is dry, swap the water for a few drops of jojoba oil instead. The tightening feeling a few minutes in is the clay pulling at your pores and it is meant to happen, so do not panic and rinse it off early. Moisturize straight after, and hold it to once or twice a week.
Get the full tutorial at A Pumpkin And A Princess.
14. Rice Bag Eye Mask
A sewn eye mask filled with rice, which is the one project on this list that lives in the freezer rather than the bathroom cabinet. Cut the template slightly bigger than you think you want, because the rice takes up more room than it looks like it will and a mask that ends up short sits on your cheekbones instead of your eyes. The maker used one cotton side and one micro-fleece, though a commenter makes the fair point that satin is kinder against the eye than fleece, which can wick moisture away.
Get the full tutorial at Creative Pink Butterfly.
15. Home Spa Treatment for Dry Cracked Feet
Four approaches to the same problem, and the salt soak is the one to start with: hot water in a tub with a tablespoon of salt, two lemons, a tablespoon of moisturizing lotion and a little soap, then rub your feet slowly against each other in the water. Three times a week and cracked heels stop coming back. After that comes the part everyone skips, which is thick lotion or petroleum jelly and a pair of cotton socks straight over the top so the moisture has somewhere to go overnight instead of evaporating.
Get the full tutorial at Womenz Mag.
16. Green Tea And Rose Facial Cream
The most ambitious thing on this page and the page says so itself. Jojoba oil is infused with green tea leaves, dried rose petals and a little alkanet root, which is what turns the finished cream pink. Beeswax, coconut oil and shea butter melt together separately, then aloe, rose hydrosol and essential oils bring the two halves into one cream. Everything is weighed rather than spooned because the ingredients are awkward shapes. There are no preservatives in it, so dry, clean utensils are not fussiness, they are the difference between three months and mould.
Get the full tutorial at Simple Life Mom.
17. DIY Lavender Bath Bombs
Weighed in ounces rather than spooned, which is why these come out the same every time: eight ounces of baking soda, four each of cream of tartar, cornstarch and Epsom salts. Three quarters of a teaspoon of distilled water, two teaspoons of coconut oil and twenty to thirty drops of lavender go in after that, and the mixture should look like wet sand and hold together when you squeeze it. If it will not, add water a drop at a time. Pack it hard into a mini muffin pan and leave it a full day before turning it out. Makes five.
Get the full tutorial at Happy Mothering.
18. Jute Rope Spa Tray
Everything on a spa day needs somewhere to live, and a coiled jute tray is a couple of dollars of rope and a jar of Mod Podge. The trick that makes it work is the cling wrap: the tray you already own gets wrapped, the rope is coiled onto that in a spiral with glue as you go, and when it dries the whole coil lifts off the wrap as one piece in the shape of the tray. Size it to whatever you need, and add handles or paper flowers if you want it to look less like a place mat.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
19. DIY Hot Stone Massage Therapy
Smooth river rocks between two and four inches long, scrubbed clean in soapy water, or a set of bought basalt stones if you would rather. Boil them about five minutes, or warm them in a slow cooker on low for forty. Then the part that matters: once they are cool enough to hold bare handed, press one against the skin behind a knee for a minute and wait. If it burns, stop and try again in two minutes. Oil the skin first so they glide, then lay them in pairs either side of the spine, across the shoulder blades and under the soles of the feet.
Get the full tutorial at Tipnut.
20. Homemade Body Butter
Three ingredients, and the surprise is what it is actually best at. A cup and a half of coconut oil measured solid, three tablespoons of honey and two tablespoons of citrus zest, mixed smooth. It works as a moisturizer for cuticles and elbows, but the maker mostly shaves her legs with it, and comes out of the shower already moisturized. Two warnings worth reading first: with fresh zest in it and no preservative it wants using inside a week, and an oil base makes a bath floor genuinely slippery.
Get the full tutorial at She Wears Many Hats.
21. DIY Curl Cream
The recipe is printed right on the graphic: two tablespoons of aloe vera, two tablespoons of coconut oil and one tablespoon of shea butter. That is a sensible curl cream, and the ratio is the part worth noticing, because aloe is what gives hold and the two oils are what stop the hold going crunchy. Whipped rather than stirred is the way to get it to spread, and it goes on soaking wet hair, never damp. Coconut oil is heavy, so fine curls want less of it and coarse curls can take the lot.
Get the full tutorial at Style Tips 101.
22. Facial Steam With Essential Oils
A bowl, a kettle, a towel over your head and two or three drops of oil, which is all a facial steam has ever been. It is the step that belongs before a mask rather than instead of one, because warm steam softens everything on the surface and the mask that follows then gets somewhere. Keep your face a good arm’s length above the water, not hovering over it, and shut your eyes: eucalyptus and peppermint vapour will find them. Five to ten minutes, then straight into the mask while the skin is still warm.
Get the full tutorial at Keeper of the Home.
23. Edible Flower And Elderflower Popsicles
Four cups of water, a tablespoon of elderflower cordial and a box of edible flowers, and the result looks like something pressed in glass. The method has one instruction that matters: layer the petals into the mould loosely rather than packing them down, then pour the cordial mixture in gently so they stay where you put them. Makes ten. To get them out, stand the moulds in warm water for a moment rather than pulling, which is the difference between a whole popsicle and a stick in your hand.
Get the full tutorial at Chew Town.
24. DIY Matcha And Green Tea Facial Scrub
A cup and a half of turbinado sugar pulsed fine in a food processor, three quarters of a cup of softened coconut oil, a tablespoon of matcha and the contents of two or three green tea bags. Pulsing the sugar is not optional: raw turbinado crystals are too sharp for a face and grinding them down is what makes this a facial scrub rather than a body one. Matcha brings the antioxidants and the colour, and the tea leaves give it texture. Add the oil slowly and stop when it looks right to you.
Get the full tutorial at The Cottage Market.
25. Bubbling Foot Scrub and Soak
Two cups of Epsom salt, half a cup of coarse sea salt, three tablespoons of body wash and a tablespoon of sweet almond, olive or avocado oil, stirred together and spooned into an airtight jar. The body wash is what makes it bubble in the water, which is the difference between this and a plain salt soak. Half a cup into warm running water, feet in for fifteen minutes, then a pumice stone or foot file while the skin is soft. Oil and cotton socks overnight afterwards, and it keeps several months in the jar.
Get the full tutorial at Bren Did.
26. DIY Napkin Paper Candle
Soft light does more for a spa evening than anything else on this page, and a plain pillar candle takes a pattern in about five minutes. Separate the printed layer of a paper napkin from its backing, wrap it around the candle, cover the whole thing with wax paper and run a warm iron over it. The wax melts just enough to take the napkin in, and the wax paper is what stops the candle itself bleeding onto your iron. Match the napkin to whatever mood the evening is meant to have.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
27. Spa-Like Bath at Home
A ritual bath built by a herbalist, and the deep green water is not dye. One or two cups of Epsom salt go into a warm tub with a scoop of blue green protein powder, which is where that colour comes from, and peony petals and fresh basil go on top. Rose quartz, turquoise and citrine sit along the rim and palo santo burns beside it. The instruction that makes it a ritual rather than a soak is at the start: put your head right under, then rest the rose quartz on your chest and stay there.
Get the full tutorial at Domino.
