Monday, April 11, 2011

Homemade Skin Scrubs


I saw a PBS special on household items that clean as well as the chemical cleaners we buy. (I know...PBS and homemade cleaners...could I get more hippie? Wait, I do own a TV and don't live in a teepee.) But seeing this post from Angela at Oh She Glows reminded me of taking this a little further.

Sure, we all know that baking soda is God's gift to a shiny sparkly...everything...but I didn't know all it could do. Here were some of the suggestions:

Toothpaste
Wipe counters with damp sponge and sprinkle baking soda
Run dishes with baking soda, as well as an empty load because b.s. (haha, baking soda) cleans out the dishwasher jets
Use as a paste (baking soda with a few drops of water) to scrub caked-on pan gunk
Glass cleaner (5 parts water, 1 part soda)

And so many other ways!

But I started to think of my hair care and skin products. Now, I am not one to wear makeup or even comb my hair on many days (sorry, it's true). I DO shower, but I just run around all day and don't take the time to do that stuff often. So I think that's why I'm late on the bandwagon to invest in natural hair and skin products. I'm also very, very cheap. Spending $17 on a hemp-infused lipstick is about $14 more than my normal vaseline sheer lipgloss. But when I saw Angela's post on homemade face scrub, I saw two awesome facts of her recipe: 1) Quick and 2) Cheap!

So I made this lemony body scrub for a few friends and will wait to see what they think.
Lemon Sugar Scrub
1 cup white sugar or table salt
1/2 cup olive oil
zest and juice from one lemon

Combine all ingredients. Store in airtight container in fridge, and take out when you need a little scrub in the shower/bath.

*This can be used on your skin, including your face, but you might want to use your regular facial cleanser after scrub because of the olive oiliness.

How crazy freaking easy is this recipe? And it costs about 50 cents! I love it! So try this and let me know what you think. And this recipe encourages creativity:

Some Alternatives:
Use orange, tangerine, or lemon zest and juice
Add almond, vanilla, or mint extract.  (1 teaspoon per batch)
Add bath salts (1 TB per batch) that are finer in texture (not too chunky), such as lavender, lemongrass, green tea, rosewater, etc.
Add spices (1/4 teaspoonful) to your batch: dried ginger, rosemary, nutmeg, cinnamon, sage, etc.  

Have fun experimenting! If you come up with something amazing, remember me when you hit it big. :)

Here are some lemon varieties, from the top down:

1. Lemon Sugar
2. Almond Lemon
3. Vanilla Lemon
4. Lavender Lemon

1 comment:

  1. what a busy bee you are - I am really impressed with your creativity!!!

    ReplyDelete