Wednesday 14 November 2007

Yummy Brown Sugar Body Scrub

There are many types of exfoliating granules like ground walnut shells, ground almonds, coffee, salt, sugar, bentonite beads, jojoba wax beads and so on. You can use one or combine two or more! Mmm, exofliating without fish. I'll be going back to Malaysia on Sunday. I have a friend who knows someone who works at a place that offers such a service. Although I'm a little squeamish, I can't help but be intrigued. I'll let you know if I do gather up the courage to take the plunge!

This delightful and ever so popular sugar scrub smells incredibly delicious and will leave your feeling oh-so-smooth and moisturised without the greasiness!

  • 200 g of brown sugar
  • 35 g of sweet almond oil
  • 20 g of macadamia oil
  • 13 g of Vitamin E oil
  • 9 g of polysorbate 20
  • 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine the ingredients thoroughly and spoon the mixture into jars. The polysorbate 20 is used as an emulsifier and detergent in pharmaceuticals and will help get rid of the greasy feeling left behind by sugar and salt scrubs.

Add a dash of cinnamon or nutmeg for a truly wonderful sweet smelling scrub or combine brown sugar, turbinado sugar and coffee grounds for a more interesting scrub. Remember the recipe is not set in stone. Be creative! Add some clay maybe to draw out toxins from your body. Lemon juice is a natural disinfectant, oats are hypoallergenic and will soothe the skin. Honey and glycerine will draw moisture to the skin and keep it soft and pulpy.

Scrubbing your body not only gets rid of dead skin cells and encourages the growth of new skin cells but it also gets the blood flowing and helps with cellulite! I have so many yummy recipes for body scrubs like the granola body scrub and the papaya body scrub. If anyone is interested in these recipes, do let me know!

Anyway, enjoy! Go forth and scrub.

2 comments:

playing with soap said...

I definitely would love too see your other scrubs, especially the papaya.

I have a question: what would you use as a preservative, especially if you are giving this to someone that may have it in the shower for a long period of time. Any ideas?

Steph

Michelle said...

Hi Steph!

The papaya scrub is so yummy because I add pineapple as well and it smells divine.

It's a fresh scrub and I'm in the process of trying to turn it into something which you can keep for ages so I can make it in bulk :)

I'll post up the recipe for the fresh scrub soon!

If your scrub is an emulsion then I usually go with Liquid Germall Plus as it's considered very effective for inhibiting growth of bacteria, yeasts and molds even at low concentrations. Typical usage is 0.1% - 0.5%.

If it's purely oil, I would probably go with Phenoserve (also called Phenonip) or LiquaPar Optima. They are very effective at keeping mold, bacteria and yeast at bay. The only problem is, they are paraben-based which some find are harmful to the body.

If you are searching for a paraben free alternative, I would suggest Optiphen Plus.

I hope that has helped!