Who wants glowing, soft skin made naturally?

Natural  body scrubs are super simple (& cheap!) to make: take 4-5 ingredients, a pretty jar & 5 minutes to stir & hey presto! you have a natural body scrub. (You couldn’t even dash to the shops that quickly!).

Tie with a gingham ribbon & label up with a tag & these are not only free from horrible chemicals, but look gorgeous too.

These make wonderful gifts & can be a lovely activity for a girl’s night in & at hen dos. That said, men can make them too!

So what are the 4 main ingredients?

Salt or Sugar as the exfoliant

Followers of my food recipes will know that I do not use refined sugar in my cooking, but it is great as a body scrub!

You can use salt (rock salt/ table salt/ Himalayan Pink salt if you are feeling extravagant!) or sugar as the exfoliant (brown/ white or natural cane). Brown tends to be gentler. The bigger the grain, the more scrubby (if there is a word!) or coarse the exfoliation will be. You can use a mixture of coarse & fine exfoliator to get the best of both worlds!

Oil to moisturise (a ‘carrier oil’)

These penetrate the skin & moisturise. Sweet almond oil, apricot kernel oil or coconut oil are great choices.  You can even use olive oil.

Essential Oil

Personalise your scrub with the oil(s) of your choice. e.g I have added ginger oil & lemon oil in the scrub pictured.  Example combinations are:

Geranium & lavender oil. A relaxing scent.

Sandalwood & neroli. An invigorating scent.

Cinnamon, caffeine & orange. A wintery & also anti-cellulite formula! (The caffeine in coffee helps decrease the formation of cellulite!)

Other possible ingredients

Shredded fresh ginger -helps exfoliation

Lemon peel- helps energise

Honey-helps nourish & moisturise skin

I like adding vitamin E oil to nourish my skin.

Energising Ginger and Lemon Body Scrub

Time: 5 mins

Equipment: a spoon and a nice jar (I’ve used a Kilner jar)

Ingredients:

450g Amber sugar crystals (almost 1 packet)

50g brown demerara sugar

Approx. 180ml Sweet almond oil

25ml Vitamin E oil

Ginger and lemon essential oils (25 drops each)

Directions

Pour sugar into a Kilner jar so it is 2/3 full

Top with carrier oil (I have used Sweet almond oil) so that the sugar is covered. Stir to coat evenly. (If using finer grains, the mix will look like a paste at this point).

Add essential oils: ginger and lemon.

Add vitamin E oil.

Mix thoroughly & then seal.

Ribbon and label optional!

I love using amber sugar crystals as I love the colour (the colour of kids gummy cola bottle sweets!) & how smooth my skin feels afterwards.

Variations:

If you want some colour (in particular if you are using a white colour exfoliant) you can add natural dyes like ground spirulina powder for a green tinge & beetroot powder for a plum one.

Don’t forget you can find my favourite recipes in my FREE eBook here.