Luxury Sugar and Salt Scrubs

 

Scrubs are a wonderful, natural way of exfoliating the skin, scrubbing off old cells, improving circulation and cell regeneration and potentially helping fade cellulite. They are also easy to make, leave your skin feeling ultra smooth and exfoliated and make for beautiful gifts. Now that the seasons are changing, skin often needs a bit of extra TLC, and these body polishes are the perfect addition to your routine.

Here are some very simple and easy to make scrub recipes for beginners. You will see that I love using avocado butter as the hard oil component because it just makes skin feel so soft afterwards, but you can use any butter. Try mango butter for its exceptional skin properties. You may also substitute any oils or add in any essential oils for scent if you wish.

 

Luxury Rosehip Body Scrub

85g  coconut sugar or fine Himalayan salt - substitutes can be brown sugar or sea salt

40g avocado butter

35g olive oil or other soft oil such as sweet almond, jojoba or pomegranate

10g rosehip seed oil (if you want to use more rosehip and less other oils, simply adjust accordingly)

2 drops vitamin E oil

200ml jar

Melt the avocado butter, vitamin E and the other oils you are using together then stir in the sugar. If you want it to be a slightly thicker scrub you can add in extra sugar. Spoon into a glass jar and use weekly. This scrub has a lovely orangey-yellow tinge from the rosehip oil, but don’t worry it won’t stain your skin!

 

Some variations on the above recipe are:

Coffee Cocoa Sugar Scrub

Substitute the avocado butter, rosehip and olive oils for:

Cocoa butter, coffee bean oil and almond oil respectively. Add in some coffee grinds for extra exfoliation and a deeper scent.

 

Choc Orange Scrub

Substitute:

Cocoa butter for the avocado butter, add in orange essential oil for a stunning scent and dried orange peel for extra exfoliation. Keep the other ratios of soft oils the same.

 

Lemon Poppy Seed Scrub

Substitute the avocado butter, olive oil and rosehip oil for:

Shea butter, safflower oil and 3g seabuckthorn berry oil, + 20 drops lemon essential oil and a few pinches of poppy seeds.

 

Coconut Rose Body Polish

¼ c coconut sugar or brown sugar

5 drops rose blend essential oil

Small handful of dried rose petals Pinch of hibiscus powder

1 T shea butter

2 T coconut oil

10g OliveM300 (optional, but helps the oils emulsify and turn ultra creamy on your skin)

Melt the shea butter, OliveM300 and coconut oil together. Blend the melted oils with the sugar and stir in the rose essential oil and rose petals.

 

Emulsifying Scrubs

If you would like to try slightly more advanced and interesting twists on the simple sugar or salt polish, then try making emulsified scrubs. Emulsified scrubs contain, you guessed, an emulsifier, which turns the oil based scrub into a beautiful cream on contact with wet skin. And because the scrub now blends with water, it also becomes easier to wash down the drain. These recipes also contain stearic acid which gives them structure, holding the sugar or salt in suspension. You can of course substitute in any soft oils or hard butter and essential oils to make up your own scrub.

 

Lemongrass and Mint Morning Salt Scrub

Phase one:

20g emulsifying wax

8g stearic acid

15g shea butter or avocado butter

45g grapeseed oil or other light oil such as jojoba or apricot kernel

2 drops vitamin E oil

Phase two:

40g fine Himalayan salt + 10g coarse Himalayan salt

15-20 drops lemongrass essential oil

5 drops spearmint essential oil (optional but I love it!)

Melt all the Phase one ingredients together in a bowl in a hot water bath. Once melted, remove from the heat and stir occasionally as the mixture cools down. You can also put it in the fridge for 40 minutes to 1 hour to solidify. Once the mixture has set but is still slightly soft, stir in the salt and the essential oils, then beat with a mixer until whipped up and fluffy. Store in a jar.

 

Scrub - to - Cream Exfoliating Blocks

You can also make solid body scrubs. These scrubby blocks (depending on what shape mold you use) are harder nuggets of exfoliating goodness. You can use them to target your feet or body and they will melt readily into a cream on contact with wet skin.

Phase one:

5g Polawax or emulsifying wax

4g OliveM300

23g rice bran oil or another light oil such as sweet almond, grapeseed oil, safflower etc

13g stearic acid

4g cetyl alcohol

Phase two:

2 drops vitamin E oil

35g white or brown sugar or coconut sugar + extra for sprinkling

Optional: essential oil of choice

Melt all the Phase one ingredients together in a bowl in a hot water bath. Once melted, remove from the heat and stir occasionally as the mixture cools down. When it is quite viscous, stir in the vitamin E oil and the sugar. Keep stirring until the mixture is thick enough that the sugar doesn’t settle out. Sprinkle some extra sugar in your molds, then pour in the mixture, sprinkling more sugar on top. Leave to set in the fridge for 20 minutes then carefully remove the scrub nuggets from the molds.

 

Try experimenting by adding warming spices such as turmeric or cinnamon to your scrubs, which can boost circulation and have other skin properties. You can also play around with essential oil blends. Some examples are: Calming: lavender essential oil, chamomile essential oil plus dried lavender blossoms Toning citrus: mandarin and grapefruit essential oilsHerbal: basil, rosemary and thyme essential oils. Use olive oil as the soft oil. We hope you have fun experimenting with sugar and salt scrubs - they're fun and easy to make and are the perfect little project for kids or beginner DIY-ers!