Homemade Exfoliating Sugar Scrub

Everyone likes smooth skin right? (Well, everyone except for my husband who gave me a confused look when told him what I was making. He just doesn’t understand.)

I saw several “recipes” for homemade sugar scrubs on Pinterest and given how easy it looked, I had to try. I also noticed that 95% of the sugar scrubs were photographed in a mason jar. I should have bought stock in mason jar manufacturers years ago.

First, a note.  People have a myriad of reasons for why they exfoliate and/or make their own scrubs. I’m not one who swears by organic anything (I need more science and appropriate regulation of terminology) nor do I believe in the detoxifying qualities of these ingredients (I prefer to rely on my kidneys and frequent bowel movements). Personally, I just like the masochistic act of scrubbing my skin raw for the temporary enjoyment of baby’s butt smoothness. Additionally, I’ve purchased a few bottles of essential oils (for additional projects to be posted later) and this was a fun way to expand my experimentation with them. Whatever your reasons are, they are your own, and you should own them.

There are tons of iterations for exfoliating scrubs. The basic idea is an oil base (i.e. coconut, olive, avocado, baby…the Johnson & Johnson kind. Please don’t squeeze a baby and hope he/she excretes oil), an abrasive ingredient (white sugar, brown sugar, salt, oatmeal, coffee), and optional additives (i.e. honey, essential oils, fruit). My recent trip to Hawaii has made me more coconut-inclined so I started with that to build off of.

Here’s what I used:

• 5 oz of coconut oil
• 3/4 cup of white sugar
• 20 drops of Orange Sweet 100% Essential oil
• 10 drops of Ginger Root 100% Essential oil

Verdict:

It WAS very easy to make myself and it did fulfill my masochistic need to rid my body of my perceived layers of dead skin cells (and a few healthy ones too most likely). The oil base of the scrub left my skin a little too oily for my taste so I had to follow up with body wash. However, I did feel incredibly moisturized for the next day or so. The scent of the coconut oil persisted despite the body wash follow up and largely overshadowed the orange and ginger, which I could still detect if I unapologetically sniffed myself by burying my nose in my skin.

To make this experiment more fun for myself, I decided to calculate the cost of making my scrub. First, a few parameters. I used Wikipedia’s definition of a drop as 0.05mL and looked up the cost of sugar at my local Target. The other prices listed are my actual costs. I also estimated that I ended up with about 8oz of scrub.

Here’s me being a good student and showing my work:

Ingredient	Total Cost	Amount Used	Fractional Cost
Nature’s Way Coconut Oil	$12 for 16 oz	5 oz	$3.75
Piping Rock Orange Sweet 100% Essential Oil	$4.79 for 2 oz (59mL)	20 drops	$0.08
Piping Rock Ginger Root 100% Essential Oil	$4.89 for 0.5 oz (15mL)	10 drops	$0.16
C&H Sugar	$2.89 for 4lb bag	3/4 cup or .33 lbs	$0.24
		TOTAL COST	$4.23

On Amazon, you can purchase an 18 oz tub of Tree Hut Sugar Scrub for $6.49. My concoction comes out to $0.52 per ounce and the Amazon product is $0.36 per ounce. Of course, this number is hugely variable depending on what product you buy, but at a very basic level, this shows you can buy a scrub for cheaper.

I’d be doing my master’s degree a huge disfavor if I didn’t acknowledge the great many variables that are unaccounted for, such as cost of shipping (if any), whether these products are already staples in your pantry vs whether you have to buy them specifically for this purpose, cost of products, quality of products, labor, and qualitative factors like product enjoyability, odor preferences, and crafting enjoyment.

Lessons learned:

1. Amazon (and Amazon Prime) is still amazing.
2. Making your own scrub is easy, especially if you already own these products.
3. Making your own scrub allows you to customize the scents, although it will take some experimentation to get a balanced scent profile.
4. Making your own scrub may not necessarily be cost saving.
5. I enjoy being a nerd. Okay, this wasn’t newly learned. I’ve always known this.

End scene.

PinTesting: 2 Ingredient Cabinet Cleaner

Pinterest…the utopia of weddings, food, fashion, and my favorite, crafts. Pressing “Pin It” is akin to saying “I can do it!” or “Yes! I can have that!” which is the sentence you’d find on page one of the “Common Phrases for Crafters.” Other common phrases might include:

• “But I can make it for cheaper”
• “Why buy it when you can make it”
• “Do you think [INSERT NAME] would like this as a gift?”

I digress. I’ve recently come across a lot of pins for “easy and diy” home cleaning solutions. I have no issues with using store-bought cleaners but the ease of these cleaning concoctions looks so simple that I had to try it. Which brings me to what I hope is going to be an ongoing sub-series: PinTesting.

Let’s face it, Pinterest is where amazingly photographed achievements go to live and mediocrity isn’t given the light of day. This is supported by the birth of the meme “Nailed it” where people showcase their hilarious attempts to reproduce other peoples projects. For examples, I suggest this amazing compilation from Buzzfeed. So, to help further inject reality into the seemingly flawless world of Pinterest, I will share my attempts to reproduce Pins I find regardless of the results. Which brings me back to to home cleaning solutions.

I found a recipe for a 2-ingredient cleaning concoction for kitchen cabinets: vegetable oil and baking soda. It is advertised as a “gunk remover”…gunk being the years of layered dirt smudges left by our dirty paws on the most touched portions of cabinet doors.

Here’s what my cabinets look liked before.

BEFORE:

After mixing the solution, I quickly discovered that to clean all my cabinets, I was going to need a hell of a lot more of this stuff. I also discovered cleaning things with a toothbrush, generally sucks. Perhaps I should have mixed in more oil, but I found this rather difficult to work with because it was so chunky and didn’t spread very well unless I used my fingers to smear it on. BUT….here’s what my cabinet looked like after cleaning:

AFTER:
End results – PASS with reservations. It It worked nicely, it left my kitchen free of the chemically-smells you’d get from using store-bought cleaner, and my cabinets did look fresh. However, after an hour of cleaning my cabinets with this, I’m not entirely convinced I wouldn’t opt for a spray on cleaner next time.