DIY: Sugar Scrub

Sugar Scrubs are one of the easiest and cost effective ways to pamper yourself. Sugar’s help exfoliate and add glow to your beautiful skin. Not to mention the oils use adds moisture which is great for dry skin. To make any kind of sugar scrub you need 3 basic ingredients

• Sugar
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Essential oils

Let’s talk Sugar. Sugar is what is going to help exfoliate the skin when you rub it on. The crystals are small enough to not be so harsh, unlike salt scrubs (those are much better used for feet), and can be used on gentle areas like the face and neck. For any basic recipe you need white sugar, like the kind you use in your coffee but not any sweetener substitute like Truvia or Splenda. You could also use brown sugar if you’d like to create a brown sugar based scrub. But white sugar has the ability that anything can be added to it without contributing extra scent like brown sugar. You can make an orange sugar scrub with white sugar but orange and brown sugar might not be so great (smell wise anyway).

For the Olive Oil, I use Extra Virgin. I usually by the off brand at the supermarket or Great Value brand at Wal-Mart. Those usually run $3-4 dollars. Find the cheapest one you can get, this is beauty on a budget after all. Save the more expensive oils for cooking. You could also substitute vegetable oil but I find that it’s too thick and might make the mixture too oily. You can try coconut oil or jojoba oil as well. Those two are using within beauty products anyway and add extra boosts to your skin. (Tip: Coconut Oil runs about $7-10 dollars and can be find either in the oil, baking, or vitamin areas of your store, Jojoba might be more expensive depending on where you look)

Essential Oils can also get costly but a great trick is hiding right in your pantry. Add a splash of Vanilla Extract (the cheapest bottles run for about $1) and then you can add spices such as Pumpkin Pie Spice, Apple Pie Spice, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, all work well for a rich and decedent smell. If you would like to purchase essential oils I usually get mine from Micheal’s, a craft store that has a section specifically dedicated to soap making needs. Here you can find a range of scents such as lavender, orange, and fresh linen and well as already made blends like Stress Relief and Relaxation. Other places to look for oils would be on etsy and any other soap making dedicated websites. Be sure to shop around so you find the cheapest price (and that includes shipping as well)

Now for the recipes. For a basic scrub you need:

• 1 to 1.5 cups of sugar
• 1/4 of a cup of EVOO
• a few drops of essential oil
• Soap Colorants (optional)

For the Eucalyptus Mint I added about 5-10 drops each of Eucalyptus Mint and Stress Relief Essential Oils (From Micheal’s) and 1-2 drops of green colorant. The colorant is optional of course but I like the way It makes the scrubs look. Because these colorants are made for soap they WON’T stain your skin and dissolve just as naturally as the rest of the ingredients. You can use  food coloring HOWEVER limit the drop to ONE. Food Coloring can stain your skin if you add too much. They are a cheaper alternative (The soap colorants are about $3) but it might be a pain for mixing to get different colors. You might accidentally add too much.

For the Pumpkin Pie(Right of center) and Apple Pie (center) I added a heaping dash of the spice blends respectively, along with a bit of vanilla. I had left over Pie spices from the holidays so I just used that but the McCormack blends can cost about $6. So if you’re not going to be making pie afterward just buy some cinnamon and maybe nutmeg if your feeling fancy. These spices can be found at dollar stores that have food areas in them (like certain Dollar Trees or Dollar Generals) or look for the cheapest spice in your local supermarket.

For the containers I would suggest glass. You can buy these mini canning mason jars (which was about $8 for I think a pack of 12 or 16 at Wal-Mart), or craft stores have small metal tins for around $1-2 dollars each. You can also reuse glass pasta jars or candle jars as long as you clean and sanitize them before hand.

Happy Scrubbing!