I love to make my own bath and body care products for many reasons, the main reason being that I can control things like consistency or scent. I dig in the garden a lot and that means I have lots of ground in dirt and grass stains on my hands. Making my own hand scrub is practically necessary when trying to get the crud off my hands after gardening!
The first time I made this scrub I used a soft hands dish soap. Sounds weird, I know...but it really cleans stains well! As much as I'm working in the dirt and cleaning away a winters worth of dirt in the coops and barn I really need to mix up some new hand scrub!
Hand scrubs are one of the easiest body care products to make at home. There are really just 2 ingredients which makes this the easiest recipe of them all. It uses nothing but sugar and soap, plus a cute little jar!
Make your own hand scrub, 2 ingredients
Pick a cute jar with a lid so you can close it up after and store in the same jar you mix it in.
First I filled my jar about 3/4 of the way with plain sugar. I use Domino's because it's pure cane sugar, and unless it says cane sugar it's probably GMO beet sugar. Next I added the dish soap. Then I mixed it up.
It was sort of runny at first, but when you mix the 2 ingredients it settles a bit. I added more sugar and mixed again. It was now about the right consistency. You want it thick enough that you can scoop it out, not so runny that it pours. That's it, you're done!I liked the light scent but you can add a few drops of essential oil if you prefer something different. You could also use a different scented dish soap if you want to make a more manly scrub. Dawn's original blue would be nice for men.
I tied a bit of twine around the lid and added some decorations. I like these jars because they come in all different sizes. I made this smaller one for my downstairs bathroom. I also added a few dyed Guinea feathers for decoration, but dried flowers would be pretty too.
If you can't find jars like this at your dollar store, Amazon has similar ones in bulk packs so you'll have extra for gifts!
You'll notice that I didn't give exact amounts for the recipe. It's about a 4:1 ratio. You might like it thinner or thicker then I do but more than that, if I tell you 4 cups sugar to 1 cup soap....you'll going to have a LOT of scrub to jar up! If you're making gifts, that would be great, but for home use I prefer to just mix it up 1 jar at a time.
I've been dabbling in homemade beauty products for probably a dozen years now. Don't get me wrong, I loves me some Lush...but I'm cheap remember? So while I love the smell of loveliness that high end beauty products have, I know I can make it much cheaper (and healthier) myself.
When you make your own body scrubs, lotions, lip balms, creams etc you can also control just how much chemical your body comes in contact with too. Did you know that your skin is your body's largest organ? It absorbs the stuff we put on it and I'm just not comfortable putting tons of chemicals on my skin on a regular basis.
I've made this scrub many times in the past using Dr Bronner's Castile liquid soap since it's much more natural. All the scents are pretty great, but my absolute favorite is the almond scented one!
I make several different types of scrubs, admittedly this one has the highest chemical content of them all (since it uses pre-made soap) I also only use this for the times when my hands are the dirtiest....like after gardening all day. You'd be surprised how well this will scrub the ground in dirt right off your hands.
Give it try, I think you'll love it!
If you like making your own hand scrub, you'll love making your own bath soaks! Check out this post on making your own herbal bath blends.
~L
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