29 Nov 🎄 Christmas Gift Ideas : Zero Waste and DIY 🎄

Whether you’re a big fan of Christmas or some kind of sweet-talking Grinch, it is now impossible to deny that Christmas is around the corner. As we enter December, it is now more-than-socially acceptable to talk about the holidays. It’s time to pull out your must-haves: Advent calendar 🍫 candy canes 🍬 and your favorite playlist 🎶 (are you more a Michael Bublé, Mariah Carey or Vince Guaraldi enthusiast?). It’s also time to add some new must-haves to your holiday preparations: raw materials, DIY and zero waste. In short, everything you need to be the highlight of this upcoming green and responsible Christmas 💚

SIMPLE CHRISTMAS DIY’S

Think of making products as an extension of what was already part of your Christmas traditions: drinking eggnog with your kids, making a batch of meat pies and baking donuts with your family. There are even common ingredients between cooking and DIY, so you can keep your bearings! A little baking soda in your cleaning products and a pinch in your Yule logs. But be careful not to mix your pound of butter with your shea butter 🥴. Or even worse, your baking soda with sodium cocoyl isethionate (SCI) 😳

December is a time to praise for slowness. During the holidays, everything goes quickly: parties are hustling, gift exchanges are multiplying and feasts are succeeding. Through this hustle and bustle, taking the time to slow down and get your hands dirty with DIY 👩‍🔬 are the greatest gifts you can give to your loved ones and yourself. Pro tip: this kind of gift will inevitably be a success. Such a success that your loved ones won’t miss an opportunity to ask you for more, and you’ll “sacrifice” yourself for the cause, with a large dose of self-love and generosity ❤️

Don’t get us wrong! When we talk about taking time, we’re not talking about dozens of hours toiling away at work 😅. The best recipes are the simplest. And the simplest ones are the most loved! At ROSECITRON, the most proven recipes among our team are the ones that have 5 ingredients or less while needing less than 30 minutes to make. The ingredients are super accessible (on our website for example 😉😉😉), the steps are simple and the time investment is within reach (3o minutes will never have been so weel invested ✨).

ROXANNE’S FAVORITE RECIPE

When the time came to name our representative elf for DIY, all eyes were on our chief elf, Roxanne Clément-Gauvin, founder of ROSECITRON, who is always having fun testing and refining DIY recipes. This year, she tested a new recipe, which quickly rose in our personal charts (even dethroning some of our all-time favorites, that’s saying something!). And it’s a recipe (courtesy of Planète Zéro Déchet) for a disarmingly simple (and effective!) bath bomb 🧼

For about 4 to 5 large balls, you need:

• 10 tablespoons of sodium bicarbonate
• 5 tablespoons of citric acid
• 2.5 tablespoons of coconut oil
• 2 tablespoons of cornstarch
• Dried flowers (optional)
• Molds (for cupcakes of ice cube)
• Large mixing bowl
• Wooden spoon or spatula

And the steps are not much more complicated. You don’t have to break a sweat to impress the crowd!

1. Combine all the dry ingredients (sodium bicarbonate, citric acid, cornstarch and dried flowers) in a large bowl.
   ⚠️ Be careful not to breathe in the dust from the citric acid.
2. Melt the coconut oil and add it to the dry ingredients.
3. Mix (with a wooden spoon, a spatula or your fingers) all the ingredients until you get a homogeneous texture, resembling wet sand.
4. Pour the mixture into molds of the shape and size of your choice (depending on how you want your bath bombs to look).
5. Place the molds in the refrigerator for a few hours or until the bath bombs are well combined.
6. Give them as gifts (of keep them in an airtight container as a gift from you to you 🙊).

Simple, right? And the result is a real charm! We guarantee it… and so do your loved ones 😉

A SEASONAL DIY BOX IN THE IMAGE OF WINTER ❄️

To simplify your introduction to DIY (or to give an original, local gift), we’re offering seasonal DIY Kits. The winter one is perfect for those who are chilly 🥶 about DIY. It includes everything you need to make (with family, friends or solo):

• 5 shower steam tablets (the “shower” format of bath bombs that naturally raise the vapors of essential oils to help decongest)
• 2 hand butters (guaranteed hydration, no more dry hands!)
• 2 decongestant balms (to be applied to the chest to clear the airways)
• 2 lip balms (to say goodbye to cracked lips and embrace winter 💋 )

What more 😉

FOR AN ECO-FRIENDLY AND SLOW CHRISTMAS

Think again. It can definitely be legit (and cute) to give your loved ones handmade gifts even if you’re older than 10 ✂️ Take the time to gather with friends and family, get your hands dirty, and make homemade goods for the people you love, with Christmas blasting, peppermint tea, and a few Christmas canes.

👉 We can already smell the good scents from your house to our headquarters. It smells like a sweet December, responsible Christmas, eco-friendly gifts and love galore 💕