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5 Homemade Sugar Scrubs

posted by Melissa Breyer Jul 21, 2008 8:00 am
5 Homemade Sugar Scrubs
4 comments

By Melissa Breyer, Senior Editor, Care2 Healthy and Green Living

I’m been to known to lean hedonistic, so it’s probably no surprise that I like rubbing (fair trade!) sugar slurped together with macadamia oil all over myself before a long bath. No surprise at all. Sometimes during the winter I am so constantly enrobed that I forgo this pleasure, but during the skin-baring summer, I do it often. So often, in fact, that I am growing a little tired of my regular formula. What’s a girl to do? Check out the trusty Care2 archives, of course. Following are five sweet sugar scrub formulas that I urge you to try. They’re cheap and easy, free of unnecessary chemicals and preservatives, and clearly pleasure-inducing.

Simple Sugar Scrub Formula
This is the basic formula I use (except I use macadamia oil and a hint of ylang ylang pure essential oil). It is as easy as it gets.

Homemade Sugar Scrub
This formula comes courtesy of Larry Pleasant, CEO of The Vermont Soapworks. It has has a few more ingredients than the Simple Sugar Scrub Formula, but is still super simple and incredibly effective.

Banana Body Sugar Scrub
This is a formula I came up, with so I can’t really go on and on about how great it is. But it’s really great. Mushed up ripe bananas, sugar, vanilla–yum.

Brown Sugar Body Polish
This sugar scrub uses spices designed with autumn in mind, but I find something very comforting about the scent of warming spices in the summer. See if it works for you.

Gentle Scrub for Fresher Skin
This might be the perfect summer sugar scrub; it’s cooling, gentle, and includes tomatoes and their alpha hydroxy fruit acid.

More on Skin Care (266 articles available)
More from Melissa Breyer (488 articles available)

4 comments

4 comments

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4 comments add your comment
Cindy M.

The sugar scrub on the face sounds great! Just a few cautions though: Always scrub SOFTLY/GENTLY in circular motions, starting at the base of the face and going upwards. NEVER scrub delicate areas, like the eyes! In this area, ALWAYS start from the outer corner and move in towards the tear duct (opposite of what most are used to) and use your ring finger--it's the gentlest. The uppermost layers of skin are all you need to conquer, if you scrub too much, it can damage the lower layers. Scrubbing the face is a misunderstanding due to the desire of exfoliating the top layers of dead skin off. This is because it's very easy to hurt the underlying layers of skin. It really works good, when washing your face, to press instead of scrub. This presses out dirt and oil grimes from the pores. As long as you don't go back and forth, in a sense tearing and stretching, you can really press as hard as possible. This is actually more beneficial in cleaning than scrubbing is. Scrubbing is ONLY ok if you do it very gently, only affecting the most upper layers of skin. If pressure moves the lower layers in this way, it can be quite damaging in the long run. A VERY gentle scrub is fine, if you use caution, though, and gentle products. Immediate affects can be positive from scrubbing, but be cautious, or later on you'll see the negatives from this action.

Akingbade Olabosipo

hey,i tried using soap and sugar.i moisten the soap and scrub on my face then apply about 1 spoonfull of sugar for sayyy...10 minutes.and then i take my bath therafter..its really amazing how tender and soft my skin feels after that..why dont you try it...i bet you'll like it.... rogimii@yahoo.com

Liz Thompson

I mix together just organic sugar and a tiny bit of organic milk and scrub it on (gently) head to toe in the shower once or twice a week. It is crazy how soft and smooth this simple mixture makes skin feel. I will have to try some of the recipes above, being a concoction junkie myself.

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Disclaimer: Care2.com does not warrant and shall have no liability for information provided in this newsletter or on Care2.com. Each individual person, fabric, or material may react differently to a particular suggested use. It is recommended that before you begin to use any formula, you read the directions carefully and test it first. Should you have any health care-related questions or concerns, please call or see your physician or other health care provider.

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