Sugar Scrub Cubes

In preparation for an upcoming bridal shower, I decided to penny pinch and try my hand at making the favors.  Since the theme of the shower was 'Victorian Teatime', I wanted to go with something tea and shower infused.  I made some 'teabags for the tub', which only required purchasing empty teabags, dried rose petals and lavender, and some thread.  After a quick internet search, I found some directions on how to make sugar scrubs into cubes.  Here are a few photos of the results:

I wanted to test the directions on two different soaps before using the nice handmade lavender soap I had.  I chose 'refreshing' lime and 'soothing' honey & oil.

The lime-scented soap did not smell nearly as refreshing as advertised, it smelt more of cleaner.  The honey & oil soap smelled delicious and warm.  It took about 1/2 an hour to shave a cup of flakes.  Note: using the blunt side of a knife worked surprisingly better than the blade.

I attempted melting the flakes with a double boiler, but found that even after HOURS of boiling, so soap would not melt on it's own.  So, with my lime batch I gave in and dumped all the oil in.  It melted much faster that way, however the consistency didn't seem quite right.  I used brown sugar, since it was all I had at the time.
With the honey batch, I attempted to double boil, but found it much more effective to place the pot directly on the burner and watch it carefully.  The consistency was quite different this time around, and as you'll see in the following photos it was just right.  I did attempt a 2nd batch of the honey, but ended up burning it... in the end, it smelled more like maple syrup, so not much of a loss there.  ;-)

As you can see, the lime batch did not stick together AT ALL!  I was terribly disappointed... but extremely excited when the honey batch turned out so great.

    

Not wanting to waste any of my concoctions, I put the lime batch into a bowl and currently use it on my feet.  It feels wonderful, just like a regular sugar scrub, but smells a lithe toxic.  The honey batch was carefully transferred into tupperware in order to travel to the bridal shower safely.

I placed the tea bags and sugar cubes into little cellophane bags, tied off with a teapot 'thank you' tag.  The shower was a delight.