First off, all apologies for not positing regularly lately. It is that time of the year when everything has to be done before December so time for experimenting and maak’iting is being used for work work /0\. I did however manage to pinch off a couple of minutes this weekend to start with the Homemade Christmas Gifts series.
I recently went for a very long overdue pedicure and was totally blown away by the scrub they used for exfoliation, so I bought a tub. Turns out what I spent my money on was some sugar and oils and after a quick search on the Google I realised I could make my very own scrub in future.
So what do you need to make your own sugar scrub? Turns out the most basic ingredients are already in your kitchen cupboard, sugar and olive oil. You will use two parts sugar (white or brown) to one part oil for a very basic scrub. You can then play around with essential oils and food colourant to create your own blend.
I found a recipe for a coffee sugar scrub, which I decided to give a try.
Turns out no matter how much I like coffee, the smell of it on your hands can become overwhelming and irritating. So this one was not much of a win.
I went a little crazy at Dischem and bought quite a few essential oils, they were between R10 and R25 per bottle, so I didn’t break the bank too much, although there is another brand which retails for up R233 per tiny tiny bottle. Crazy. Anyway so I decided to try out a orange scrub too. I used brown sugar though and I would suggest that if you want to use colourants rather use white sugar. My beautiful smelling orange sugar scrub turned out looking like pumpkin, not so great.
White sugar very definitely works better with the dye, although you have to be super careful about how much you add. I added about 2 ml and it turned out way more blue than what I wanted it to. I added some lavender oil to this one and it is very definitely my favourite.
These scrubs have a shelf life of about two months if it is kept in a cool dark place. You can also add an preservative (read more about preservatives here) to make it last longer. I found these wonderful glass jars at Game for R 135 for the set, but you can make your own blackboard jars. I also found wooden teaspoons at Woolworths – R 7.95 for a packet of six spoons – which will serve as scoops for the scrub.
Ladle the scrub into the jars and pretty them up to your heart’s desire.
