Soothing Scrubs – A Great Gift to Make or Keep for Yourself

One of the not-so-nice things about winter is drier skin.  When temperatures drop in Minnesota, the dry air and hard water conspire.  If you’re a hot shower lover like I am, you pay the price with itchiness, extra flaking and even cracked, scaly skin.  Last year, I happened upon a soothing, moisturizing scrub recipe that is so easy, you’ll want to mix up a batch for yourself and treat your friends, too!

I made this scrub in small batches last year for gifts, and decided to go all out this year.  Pete took photos this time so that I could share with you – see our snowy Minnesota weather out our kitchen window?

The scrub ingredients are simple, and easy to find:  Epsom salts, oil, essential oil if you desire fragrance, and food-safe coloring if you desire color in your product.

I use different sized canning jars for containers, but you could certainly use a plastic container with a lid, or a recycled jar.  Just make sure it has a wide mouth so that you can scoop out the scrub by the handful.  You can get decorative jars and containers at craft and import stores, too.  Look for lids that can be closed tightly to guard against leaks.

Epsom salts can be found at any drugstore and most grocery stores.  I got these 4 lb cartons on sale for about $2.00 each.  This carton is about the size of a half gallon of milk.  Who knew Epsom salts were such a wonder-product?  Not only can they be used as a laxative, but also as a soak for pain relief from sprains and bruises.  The coarse texture is great as a skin exfoliant.  If you like a finer texture for your scrub, you could substitute sugar in this recipe, too.

I use a large, stainless steel mixing bowl.  I pour the entire 4 lb carton in and crush any lumpy bits with a potato masher.  The Epsom salts are actually magnesium sulfate crystals, so they glisten.  Did you know Martha Stewart uses them as “snow” in her holiday table displays?  Now you do. 

From a 4 lb carton of Epsom salts, you’ll get about 4 pints of finished scrub, depending upon how much oil you add.  I use Grapeseed Oil.  It’s kind of pricey but it goes a long way.  You could use just about any oil – olive or canola or even vegetable oil.  I like the Grapeseed because it has more Omega 6 and Vitamin E, plus it has almost no fragrance.

Just pour the oil in on top of the salts in the bowl and stir it in.  About 1/5 or 1/4 of a 1 Liter bottle is enough.  I suppose you could mix it in with your hands and they’d be really soft when you’re done, but I use a spoon. 

Once you’ve mixed the oil in, you may want to add a fragrance.  The best way to do this is to use essential oils, found in craft stores and organic markets.  Some people even mix a couple of scents together, but I prefer a simpler one-note fragrance.  I’m using lavender – restful and calming,  and grapefruit – a little zestier. Each of these tiny bottles cost around $7.00.

As with the Grapeseed oil, a little goes a long way.  The bottles come with built-in droppers so you can conserve this expensive ingredient.  I usually add around 10 drops of essential oil to each batch of mixed salts.  Just enough so that the aroma doesn’t knock you over. 

Next I like to add a little color, so that I can tell the fragrances apart.  Here I’m using food-safe coloring that we had left from coloring Easter eggs.  Again, just a couple of drops go a long way, as you don’t want too much color, especially if you have fair skin.

Here I’m using two drops of red and two of blue to make purple for the lavender batch.  I used two drops of red to make a nice pinky grapefruit tone for the grapefruit batch.

It mixes up pretty quickly, but you do want to stir thoroughly to disperse the color throughout the batch.

Once you’ve got a uniform color throughout, you can ladle the scrub into your jars.  I use a funnel, and I pack the contents down with my spoon so the jars are full.  Invariably, I’ll have a bit left over that isn’t enough for a full jar.  This goes into my personal stash. 

The scrub can be used in the shower as an exfoliant or skin rub, or if you’re a bather, add a handful to the bath water to soften your skin.

Lavender essential oil is a remedy for nervous tension, treats pain and respiratory problems, and enhances blood circulation.  These benefits are just what we need to survive a cold and brutal winter!  It’s often recommended for insomnia, too – so bathing in lavender just before bedtime must ensure a restful sleep!

The essence of grapefruit has been used as a stimulant and for treatment of depression.  It’s an anti-oxidant, and benefits the lymphatic and digestive systems.  It’s particularly good as an antiseptic for skin infections and eruptions, and on bruises and wounds.  It looks like I’ve made two great choices in essential oils without even realizing it!  I’ve decided I will be making tags with information on the organic ingredients in the scrubs.

The jars are really pretty when they’re filled.  I like to play up the feminine look of the pastel scrub with complementary ribbon.  This year’s theme is silvery snowflakes – a lovely homemade gift for just about anyone!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Olive Oil: Nature’s Best Moisturizer (chocolatechiq.com)
• How To Care For Dry Sensitive Skin (howcast.com)