Simply Sweet Skin Softening
May 9, 2011 by Jessica Christman
Filed under For the Home, Party and Special Occasion
You can hide under sweaters, scarves and socks throughout the winter, but summer’s sandals, shorts and sleeveless tops put skin on display. Give yourself a healthy glow by shedding any layers of scaly, dead skin along with the layers of woolen clothes through a homemade beauty treatment.
Things you need:
Coconut Oil
Sugar
Mason jar
Essential Oils (optional)
Things to do:
1. Melt coconut oil. Or, if you can’t find coconut oil, use olive oil which is just as beneficial for your skin although it does have a stronger scent. The amount of oil to use depends on how big a batch you want to make.
2. Pour in enough sugar to make a paste.
3. If you like, you can enhance the treatment with an aromatherapy effect by adding a few drops of your favorite essential oil.
4. Pour the skin treatment into a clean glass jar with a secure lid.
Scoop a bit out every day when you shower and rub it over the parts of your body that need help exfoliating like elbows, knees and feet. Unlike some home beauty treatments, which should be made in small batches and used immediately to avoid spoilage, this one keeps beautifully for months. You can make this a beautiful gift for a friend by pouring in into a mason jar. Decorate the jar with stickers or decoupage images to personalize it. Wrap the jar with a towel to protect the artwork as you pour the body scrub in. Tie some colorful ribbon or raffia into a bow and give your friend a gorgeous gift.
Your body scrub can also be part of a beautiful home foot treatment that will leave you feeling pampered and your feet feeling (and looking) more lovely. Fill a foot bath (or large pan) with 1 part water and 1 part apple cider vinegar. Rinse any dirt off your feet first, and then soak your feet in the vinegar bath. The vinegar will cool hot, aching feet after a day of hiking or yard work in the summer sun. The vinegar will take the both the ache and the odor out of your feet, leaving them cool and refreshed. After soaking your feet for 5 minutes, rub the coconut oil-sugar exfoliant into your soles. Then soak the feet again in the vinegar for another 10 minutes. Have a towel handy to wipe your feet off afterward.
Photo Credit: My Sweet Garden
Where do you get the essential oils? And did you use food coloring to make the pretty colors?
You can buy essential oils from Amazon, or try essentialoil.com they have every kind of essential oil that you could ask for! The oils themselves should add color to your scrub. I wouldnt recommend using food coloring because this may stain your skin, towels, etc etc. I hope this helps!
If I want to make 6 mason jars how much coconut oil will I need? Sugar? Also, what type of sugar do you find works best? Thanks for your help ) I have the coconut oil and essential oils so Im almost ready to begin my gift making )
Oh very good questions! For a basic rule, you want one part oil to two parts sugar. So for 6 mason jars (Im assuming pint jars) you would want approximately 4 pints sugar and 2 pints of the coconut oil. I prefer sugar cane sugar personally, but you could use also white or brown sugar. Both would work fine, brown sugar is better for sensitive skin though. Hope this helps!
If using this for feet, add peppermint oil. Good for the feet
Im thinking I would like to try this and I have some pretty plastic jars can they be used? Thank you for your time..
Hi Karen! I would think that plastic jars would be perfectly fine to use for this project! Thanks for the great question and happy crafting!
How do you keep the coconut oil soft? I tried this a while back and it hardened as it got cool and was hard to get out of the jar.
To keep the coconut oil in a soft liquid state, you can mix it with jojoba oil or olive oil. It melts around 75F, so you can also just fill a sink up with warm water and set your jar in the sink. This should heat it up enough, so that it returns to its liquid state.
Helpful comments! Iv added food coloring to the scrubs Ive made and havent had any problems with staining. I just add a wee bit. A little goes a long, long way.