Sugar scrubs are one of my favorite ways to exfoliate my skin. Unlike some of your other scrubs they melt away without leaving a residue, which for me is an added bonus, since there’s no clean up afterwards.
Benefits of scrubs
The main benefit of scrubs is their ability to exfoliate the skin. This is an extremely effective way to remove surface debris and dead cells from our skin. Which encourages new skin growth, and if we’re following a healthy diet it will encourage healthy skin growth. People often ask me where do I get my glow, besides my healthy lifestyle choices exfoliation is helpful in this area too since it does promote fresh and glowing skin. It also decreases the depth of wrinkles. With so many benefits, why wouldn’t you exfoliate your skin?
In the recipe below, I added essential oils. For those who are looking for animal friendly products, look no further than this soothing sugar scrub, it’s Vegan! You can make your scrubs without essential oils, and still have an amazing scrub that will leave you with soft skin, however I tend to add a few drops of essential oil since they do enhance my natural skin care products.
Soothing Sugar Scrub
- 1 cup raw turbinado sugar (or brown sugar)
- 1/2 cup Jojoba oil (you can also use sweet almond oil, peach oil, or coconut oil)
- *3 drops of lavender, rose geranium, or ylang ylang essential oil (optional)
Directions
- Mix all ingredients in a bowl
- Massage gently onto skin
- Let the sugar scrub remain on skin for 3-5 minutes
- Rinse off
- Enjoy your softly scented skin
Be kind to your skin! If you exfoliate too hard or too often you can leave your skin raw or cause skin irritation.
Skin Patch Test
If you’re trying a new product on your skin I always do a patch test. I choose an area on my skin that isn’t noticeable. I then apply the product and wait 48 hours. If I don’t have a reaction I’ll use the product. I cannot think of the last time I’ve had a reaction to my natural skin care products, however just because a product is natural doesn’t mean you can’t have a negative reaction.
A quick look at the sugar scrub ingredients
If you’re like myself, not only do you want to know what’s going into the foods you eat. You want to know what’s going into the products you put onto your skin too. Creating your own natural skin care recipes is an effective way to control what’s going into your skin care products. I’ve compiled a short list of information about the ingredients I used in the sugar scrub. I hope you find it helpful.
Raw Turbinado Sugar
Raw turbinado sugar can be found in many of your sugar scrubs. I love it because of its a slightly larger grain than your regular sugar. It’s a great for exfoliator, and since it’s sugar it tends to melt away leaving no residue.
Most sugars contains glycolic acid. Gycolic acid can be found in many skin care products because of its ability to penetrate the skin. Studies have shown that it may reduce wrinkling, hyperpigmentation, acne scarring, along with other skin conditions.
Jojoba oil
Jojoba oil is a natural oil and is suitable for all skin types. Although you can use it alone, it’s usually used as a ‘base or carrier oil’ to which other ingredients, like essential oils are added. Jojoba oil has numerous benefits and it’s something I use often in my hair and skin regimen. Jojoba oil is easily absorbed because its chemical composition closely resembles that of our skins natural sebum.
Rose Geranium essential oil
I love the scent of rose geranium essential oil. It’s wonderful for sensitive, dry, or oily skin. It’s also used to treat acne, skin inflammations, and eczema.
Lavender essential oil
Lavender essential oil has a calming scent. It has been used to treat numerous skin disorders such as eczema, acne, psoriasis. Lavender essential oil effectively has been used to heal wounds, cuts burns, aids in treating migraines, headaches, etc.,
Ylang Ylang (pronounced ee-lung ee-lung) essential oil
Ylang Ylang essential oil is one of my favorite essential oils. I use it often in perfume blends. Ylang Ylang essential oil is great for oily and dry skin. It’s a natural conditioner and it’s been reported that it stimulates natural hair growth. There are numerous grades of this oil. I tend to purchase the Ylang Ylang superior.
If you have an active life, you know how easy it is to get so get wrapped up with your activities that you forget to take out time for yourself. I’m sure many of us have heard the cliché, Stop and smell the roses. Just do it. It’s something we all need to do now and again. One of the many ways I take a timeout from my busy life is pampering myself with a simple sugar scrub.
Technorati Tags:
Moondancer, Recipes, Vegan, Natural Skin Care
How wonderful to have connected with you again. I am DELIGHTED you found me.
I’m going to go and have a scoot around the posts to update myself on all your news over the last 2 or so years.
Oh, how many times I have thought of you and your food, your daughter and your garden. I truly am ecstatic to be in contact again.
@Megan from Australia – It’s definitely nice to reconnect; this website is only a few months old.
I have been writing while I took a huge break from my other websites. I had a website that was focused on gaming. As much as I enjoy gaming, I finally realized that was simply an escape since I missed writing about everything else too. I did feel empty not writing about things I truly enjoy, gaming is just one of those things that are part of an extremely long list. 🙂
Oh that sounds like something really good to try! I will have to grab those ingredients and give this one a try. Thanks for sharing 🙂
Awesome! And wouldn’t you know, I already have all the ingredients. I like using that sugar for a lip scrub :). Thank you!
@kaozz and @Maira Grove – I hope you two like it. The oils used are kind to your skin, which is why I called it a soothing sugar scrub.
I find sugar scrubs to be more gentle than some of the other scrubs, and as mentioned its an excellent way to exfoliate skin. As incredbly yummy as sugar scrubs smell, I’ve not been tempted to taste them. 😉
I just wrote a comment hrmmm where did it go to? Ok am doing so again. Thats a great Post, I wasnt aware about the wrinkle thing. I need my husband to do it or kaozz!! Yes kaozz will do it! lol You are so intellegently aware!
@Janet McDonald – Oh don’t you hate when your posts gets eaten?
It sounds like the hubby and @kaozz – It sounds like they’ll make excellent candidates. The question is, do they know they’ve been volunteered? If not, they’ll find out soon enough, eh> 😉
@Moondancer –
LOL no they dont know! heh heh
@Janet McDonald – LOL, stealth attack for the win! 😉
Where do you get those oils? Health food store? I want to try it.
Hi @Melinda @ Simple Home Organization, Yes you can get them at most health food stores, If you have a new age shop or an aromatherapy store in your area check those places out too, since a lot does sell them too. If not, there’s always Amazon or try From Nature with Love. It’s a great online store, FNWL sells a lot of items for those of us who enjoy making our own things. Before I started purchasing essential oils in bulk, I purchased my items from there.
@Moondancer, Thanks..I’m going to look for some.
I never thought that brown sugar can be use as body scrub.. A new wonderful idea.. hmmmm.. I’ll try this at home to have a healthy glowing skin.. 🙂
Thanks for sharing.
Stephen recently posted..What Green Foods Are And Why You Need Them
[…] mask. Those are great for tightening up the skin, removing impurities, and toning the skin. A sugar scrub was applied to my body, and after that round of pampering I applied a nice moisturized. One of my […]
You can also use cleansing milk which is easily available at the market if you do not want to wash your face all the time. Cleansing milk produces the same effect as face wash and helps in unclogging the pores. If you have an oily skin, try and avoid cleansing milk.
Great article. Now I know that sugar also is one of the natural skin care. It has many uses like scrubbing in the skin and also it helps ex foliate the skin . It can also treat pimple. Its great i love sugar 🙂
Cynthia recently posted..stretch mark removal
No offense, but sugar has this rough texture. I tried it and I am afraid I have an allergy with it. If it is mixed with water, I guess it would dilute and may apply without the feeling of rubbing roughness.
HI @Amira, Yes alone sugar will be too rough for some people’s skin, that’s why jojoba oil is incuded with this recipe. Since it’s a liquid, the scrub won’t be as rough when you apply it to your skin. 🙂
@Opal,
Yeah, silly of me. Thanks for the reply Miss O. I really appreciate it. I was thinking of the raw sugar. A friend of mine tried one but she got this reddish color on her skin where she put on the raw sugar. 🙂
Amira recently posted..jojoba oil for acne
@Amira, Yes some people might have a reaction. My face is extremely sensitive. For that reason, I normally do a patch test.
Salt scrubs cause my face to get red, but my body and feet don’t have a reaction.
Thanks for stopping by, and my apologies for the delayed response.
[…] ago I had some brief me time. What did I do? I made a sugar scrub for my skin! I’ve posted sugar scrub recipes on some of my other sites years ago (2003) I first posted about them (on this site) way back in […]