{"id":7317,"date":"2011-12-22T21:00:58","date_gmt":"2011-12-23T03:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/?p=7317"},"modified":"2011-12-22T21:00:58","modified_gmt":"2011-12-23T03:00:58","slug":"peppermint-and-lemon-foot-soak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/22\/peppermint-and-lemon-foot-soak\/","title":{"rendered":"Peppermint and Lemon Foot Soak"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday was a busy day of baking cookies, painting salt dough ornaments, working on the nursery, a trip to Target, and wrapping Christmas presents late into the night. \u00c2\u00a0As a result, blogging got put on the back-burner yesterday (and I was on such a roll with posting!) \u00c2\u00a0I think it&#8217;s going to be go, go, go around here for the next few weeks (and then some!). \u00c2\u00a0On the agenda for today: get old car(s) (yes, plural) tuned up, washed and vacuumed in preparation for trading them in tomorrow (new car day!!!), write thank you notes for baby gifts received, do some deep cleaning around the house, work on the nursery, and finish (and deliver?) a few handmade gifts. \u00c2\u00a0Whew! \u00c2\u00a0It&#8217;s good thing The Littlest Apple is spending the day (and night) with my parents.<\/p>\n<p>Now that The Littlest Apple is out of school for the Christmas break, I can share this great Foot Soak I made for his preschool teachers. \u00c2\u00a0I&#8217;ve created <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/2010\/05\/10\/homemade-bath-scrubs\/\">homemade scrubs before (for Mother&#8217;s Day)<\/a>, but this gift idea caught my eye on <a href=\"http:\/\/pinterest.com\/thepickyapple\/\">Pinterest<\/a> because it was a <em>foot soak<\/em>, not a scrub, and included peppermint tea. \u00c2\u00a0Also, it wasn&#8217;t super oily like lots of other scrubs. \u00c2\u00a0Teachers who are on their feet all day herding preschoolers deserve something luxurious and refreshing to soak their tired feet in at the end of the day, don&#8217;t you think?! \u00c2\u00a0(Not a bad idea for pregnant women either, so I made myself a batch too!) \u00c2\u00a0This soak was amazingly easy to make, and The Littlest Apple enjoyed helping me stir together the ingredients. \u00c2\u00a0I packaged it in these jars that I just love (I bought some of mine at Garden Ridge Pottery and some at Hobby Lobby), and kept my labeling and ribboning to a minimum (mostly because I made about 10 of these and got burnt out by the ribboning stage).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Peppermint-Foot-Soak-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-7330\" title=\"Peppermint Foot Soak 2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Peppermint-Foot-Soak-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"557\" height=\"371\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Peppermint-Foot-Soak-2.jpg 557w, https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Peppermint-Foot-Soak-2-300x199.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 557px) 100vw, 557px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I paired the foot soak with a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/13\/rice-heat-therapy-packs\/\">Rice Heat Therapy Pack<\/a> containing eucalyptus essential oils, also hand sewn by me. \u00c2\u00a0Yes, 10 of them. \u00c2\u00a0I&#8217;m glad to have that marked off my To Do list! \u00c2\u00a0I found a super cute fabric on sale at Hobby Lobby, and I&#8217;m already itching to use it for myself somehow.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Peppermint-Foot-Soak-3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-7331\" title=\"Peppermint Foot Soak 3\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Peppermint-Foot-Soak-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"557\" height=\"371\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Peppermint-Foot-Soak-3.jpg 557w, https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Peppermint-Foot-Soak-3-300x199.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 557px) 100vw, 557px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m kicking myself for not getting any better pictures of this stuff for you. \u00c2\u00a0The pictures I do have were taken at night and are pretty awful.<\/p>\n<h3>Peppermint and Lemon Foot Soak<\/h3>\n<p>recipe from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oneshetwoshe.com\/2010\/04\/handmade-foot-soak-how-to-she-sosae.html\">Or So She Says&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ingredients:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>1 cup sea salt (a great alternative would be Kosher salt)<\/li>\n<li>1 cup Epsom salt (usually found in the personal care\/pharmacy aisle)<\/li>\n<li>2 Tbsp peppermint tea (Be careful not to confuse this with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153peppermint flavored\u00e2\u20ac\u009d tea: the tea should be 100% peppermint leaves. Tip: if you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t find it in bulk, buy a box of tea-bags, cut them open and measure!)<\/li>\n<li>4 tsp pure peppermint extract<\/li>\n<li>3 tsp pure lemon extract<\/li>\n<li>1 tsp olive oil<\/li>\n<li>1 tsp cornstarch<\/li>\n<li>1 tsp baking soda<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Combine the sea salt and Epsom salt in your mixing bowl. When the two salts are completely blended, add olive oil, peppermint extract and lemon extract. Stir each time you add an ingredient, making sure to break apart any large chunks of salt with your spoon. Once these liquid ingredients have been fully incorporated, your salt mixture will look like moist sand (and it will smell pretty good too!). Now it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time to add the cornstarch and baking soda. Again, blend thoroughly, breaking apart any large clumps of baking soda or salt. \u00c2\u00a0Almost done! Now add the final ingredient \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the peppermint leaves. (I add this last, because I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve found that adding them early in the process causes the leaves to bruise and give off their green color to the salt.) Stir the leaves in until they are fully blended with the salt mixture. Go ahead and take a deep breath while you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re at it \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it should have a very refreshing scent!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Peppermint-Foot-Soak.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-7327\" title=\"Peppermint Foot Soak\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Peppermint-Foot-Soak.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"557\" height=\"371\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Peppermint-Foot-Soak.jpg 557w, https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Peppermint-Foot-Soak-300x199.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 557px) 100vw, 557px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>At this point, if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re planning on keeping the foot soak for yourself, store it in an air-tight container so it stays fresh. If the container is not air-tight, the beautiful aroma of the extracts and the peppermint leaves will fade. (The soak will still be useful, just not as charming!)<\/p>\n<p><em>Instructions for Use: Fill a small basin with warm water and stir in \u00c2\u00bc to \u00c2\u00bd cup of foot soak. Stir it to dissolve the salts, and soak your feet for 10-15 minutes. Ahhhh\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/22\/peppermint-and-lemon-foot-soak\/\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday was a busy day of baking cookies, painting salt dough ornaments, working on the nursery, a trip to Target, and wrapping Christmas presents late into the night. \u00c2\u00a0As a result, blogging got put on the back-burner yesterday (and I was on such a roll with posting!) \u00c2\u00a0I think it&#8217;s going to be go, go, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,78,37,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crafts","category-gifts","category-holiday","category-motherhood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7317"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7336,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7317\/revisions\/7336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepickyapple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}