Three basic body scrub recipes, with simple ingredients you will most likely already have in the kitchen cabinet!
First you will find the ingredients listed under each title. Then, further down the page, the instructions for blending them together into a scrub. Super simple, nothing too eccentric or extravagant, just some easy peasy – but absolutely delightful – body scrub recipes!
1. Gentle unscented Body Scrub
The most ‘neutral’ of all basic body scrub recipes, perfect to use just on its own for silky soft and nourished skin. Or as a base, to spice-up with a drop of essential oil right before using. Two ingredients. It doesn’t get any more simple than this.
Ingredients:
Fine sea salt – 2 cups
Grape seed oil or Sweet Almond oil – about ¾ cup (Olive oil works too, but personally I prefer a more neutral scent.)
2. Half & Half Body Scrub
Combine brown sugar with white granulated sugar, for a blend with two colors. From a distance, this natural body scrub will appear to be light brown. The brown sugar and the white granulated sugar have a slightly different consistency. The recipe makes a scrub with grains of different sizes, resulting in an extremely soft skin.
To add an extra dimension to this scrub, separate the white granulated sugar into two parts. Pass one half through an old coffee grinder first and then mix both unground and ground white sugar together.
Ingredients:
Brown sugar – 1 cup
White granulated sugar – 1 cup
Grape seed oil or Sweet Almond oil – about ¾ cup
3. Sugar & Spice Body Scrub
Getting a bit more fancy here, but the components of this recipe should still be readily available from the kitchen cupboard. Body scrub recipes with spices – don’t they make you think of falling leaves, cold air and hot coco, cosy moments curling up under a blanket and family gatherings around the thanksgiving dinner? Just a thought though – of course, nothing prevents you from using them somewhere in July!
Ingredients:
Brown sugar – 2 cups
Cinnamon – 1 teaspoon
Nutmeg – 1 teaspoon
Sweet almond oil – about ¾ cup
Let’s mix!
Equipment:
A cup measurement toolset, a mixing bowl, a teaspoon (unless it’s included in the measurement set), a fork, a spoon and a clean jar of approx. 16 oz, or multiple jars in smaller sizes.
Steps:
- Measure the correct amount of sugar into the bowl.
- Work out any lumps in the sugar using the fork.
- Add spices and/or other dry ingredients (like cinnamon and nutmeg in the third recipe).
- After a few minutes of mixing, start adding the sweet almond oil little by little.
- Measuring works, but drizzling some in there straight out of the bottle works even better. The exact quantity doesn’t really matter, as long as you see the scrub reaching the desired consistency. There’s no need to ‘drown’ the sugar in oil.
- Mix for a few more minutes before spooning the body scrub into the jar(s).
- It can be used right away, but letting the recipe cure for a few hours/days will allow the spices to come out more.
*When adding essential oils to your basic body scrub recipes, do so at the end, after the vegetable oil has been somewhat mixed in & blend thouroughly! Suggestions for essential oils to add can be found at the bottom of the page.
These Basic Body Scrub Recipes don’t need much shopping…
… and with only a few ingredients, they don’t break the bank.
As mentioned earlier, any vegetable oil will work – and most people have either olive oil, sunflower oil or something similar in the kitchen. However, to give these easy body scrub recipes just the tiniest bit of a “spa”-feeling, why not get a special bottle of carrier oil? It will last many tubs of scrub, or can be used in other natural skin care recipes, all for less than the price of one jar of most ready-made body scrubs.
Sweet almond oil is very gentle and soothing. Great for sensitive skin, eczema and acne, it barely has any scent at all. A perfect match for just about any fragrance you want to spice your scrub up with… (such as the cinnamon and nutmeg in the third recipe!) To avoid traces of pesticides entirely, I like to use certified organic sweet almond oil. More expensive, but well worth the difference, when considering it keeps both the planet and the body free of toxins.
Upgrade your Basic Body Scrub Recipes with Essential Oils
Since this page is all about simplicity – let me reassure you, adding essential oils to these basic body scrub recipes doesn’t have to make them all that more complicated.
The “Sugar & Spice Body Scrub” already contains the cinnamon and nutmeg. One essential oil is enough to give the recipe an entirely new dimension. (You probably see this one coming…) Why yes, orange essential oil, indeed!
Some of the most classic essential oils are great on their own, and at the same time very affordable.
Add around 12 drops to either the “Gentle Unscented” or the “Half & Half Body Scrub” recipe. Depending of your personal preference, try lavender essential oil for a soothing & relaxing scrub, spearmint or peppermint essential oil for a boost of freshness and tangerine essential oil for a playful zest of sweet citrus.
Shopping Tips
My favorite suppliers of carrier & essential oils online, at very competitive prices.
- iHerb
A whole bunch of random skin care products and supplies for making your own can be found at iHerb. iHerb sells many different high quality skin care lines, but not all are as natural – be sure to check the listed ingredients. ‘Aura Cacia’ is a great aromatherapy brand for organic oils and even ‘Now Foods’ starts to throw in more and more organic ones. Both brands offer regular (non-organic) carrier and essential oils as well.
If you’re a first time customer, a Coupon Code is embedded in the links below. (Up to $10 off every first order!) Big plus for iHerb’s very affordable shipping: $4 without tracking, to many countries worldwide.
Sweet Almond Oil │ Organic Sweet Almond Oil │ Grapeseed Oil │ Lavender Essential Oil │ Organic Lavender Essential Oil │ Sweet Orange Essential Oil │ Organic Sweet Orange Essential Oil │ Spearmint Essential Oil │ Organic Peppermint Essential Oil │ Tangerine Essential Oil
- Amazon
What’s in a name? Amazon is such a jungle! The Amazonian rainforest of products. Aura Cacia and Now Foods oils are available from various suppliers. Which can be a bit overwhelming, perhaps.
Try the following links: Organic Sweet Almond Oil │ Raw Organic Mango Butter
- Mountain Rose Herbs
I feel most at home on the website of Mountain Rose Herbs. There’s comfort in the familiarity and trusted service. Mountain Rose Herbs has most anything herbal, botanical and organic. The perfect place for homemade skin care supplies, all organic carrier oils & essential oils you could possibly wish for. (Allright, almost all ;-))
Works for the US and Canada only though, as Mountain Rose Herbs currently doesn’t ship outside of these two countries.
Idea’s to Share?
I realize these suppliers are very much geared towards US customers. Except for iHerb, which is one of my favorite places to shop, because it ships all over the world for a reasonable price. Gracefruit (UK-based) and Aroma-Zone (France based) are two suppliers of natural skin care ingredients you might want to check out in Europe. Do you read French? Aroma-Zone has a great website with a myriad of homemade skin care recipes. Not everything is all-natural, as they carry pretty much every skin care ingredient, from synthetic preservatives to organic botanicals. A great place to browse, though. I take what agrees with me and disregard the rest.
Any tips on suppliers of natural skin care ingredients in other parts of the globe? I’m always interested! Peeps out there from Australia or New-Zealand for example… where do you shop for organic oils, butters & waxes?
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Read More:
- Sugar Scrub Recipes with Essential Oils
- Natural & Organic Skin Care Recipes
- The Many Ways to Use Essential Oils for Skin Care
- Homemade Deodorant Recipe, Super Soft & Creamy
- Why Choose Organic Hair Care?