It's time to get rid of the winter doldrums with this luxurious and bright-smelling DIY body buff. Not only does it come together in a jiffy, but it will also leave your skin feeling smooth and nourished.
Exfoliation - often overlooked, but so important for keeping your skin healthy and vibrant looking. You see, when you get rid of dead skin cells and debris, it allows any product you apply afterwards to penetrate deeper into the skin. It also helps with faster cell turnover, which is great for youthful-looking skin.
Salt scrubs are a great way to gently exfoliate and replenish the skin with oils and minerals, leaving it soft, radiant, and smooth. And, they are easy to make as well, all it takes is mixing all your ingredients and voila - done.
Ingredients
Exfoliator: For this recipe, I chose pink Himalayan salt as the main exfoliating ingredient. It is more pricey than regular salt, but I wanted this scrub to be special. Maybe a gift for a new mom or on Mother's Day as part of a pampering gift basket. I use mostly fine salt for this scrub, but I also like to add some coarsely ground salt for more exfoliation. I grind the coarse salt in a salt grinder so that I can control the size of the salt flakes.
Oil: Any oil you have on hand will work here. I like to use a lightweight oil, such as sweet almond, grapeseed, or jojoba.
Emulsifier (Polysorbate 80): This is optional, but I highly recommend it. Why? It prevents your shower or bathtub from becoming a slippery mess and a safety issue. It also helps the scrub rinse off more easily. Unless you're planning to use this scrub only over the sink, I would use it.
Preservative (Optiphen): This scrub is oil-based and doesn't require a preservative. It is very likely, however, that you will introduce water at some point in the shower or when scooping it out with wet hands. Water is prone to building up bacteria and mold over time. Again, I'd say use it unless you're sure you won't get it wet.
Vitamin E: helps prolong the shelf life of this scrub by delaying rancidity. It also has wonderful skin benefits.
Essential Oils: Scent is always a lovely addition to a body scrub. My favourites are bright, invigorating essential oils, like any citrus (I'm using grapefruit), rosemary, eucalyptus, and mint.
Tips for Use
- Wet your skin in the shower, or for stronger exfoliation, use it on dry skin
- With circular motions, rub it over areas of dry, rough skin
- Rinse the salt off and pat dry using a towel
- Follow up with your favorite moisturizer or emulsified body butter
- If you're planning to color your nails afterward, clean off any excess oil from your nails with nail polish remover
Himalayan Salt Body Scrub
This luxurious salt scrub will leave your skin feeling smooth and nourished. It's easy to make and is a great way to exfoliate dry, dull-looking skin!
Ingredients
- 140 g pink himalayan salt use fine or a mix of fine and coarse ground, depending desired level of exfoliation
- 42 g oil sunflower, grapeseed, apricot kernel or jojoba
- 21 g polysorbate 80 optional, but recommended
- 2 g vitamin E optional
- 2 g preservative optional, but recommended
- 2 g essential oil optional
Instructions
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Weigh out all your ingredients using a digital kitchen scale and add them to a mixing bowl
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Stir using a spatula until well combined
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Scoop into a glass or plastic jar and tighten the lid
Until next time. Happy Tinkering!
Harrison says
This website was... how do you say it? Relevant!! Finally I have found something which helped me.
Appreciate it!
Celine says
Hi Harrison, I'm so glad I could help. 🙂
Sofia says
Hallo Celine!
Wie lange dieses Peeling andauern werden? Kann man ein Konservierrngsstoff benutzen?
Danke im Voraus
Viel liebe ♡♥♡
Celine says
Hallo Sofia,
gute Frage! Ohne konservierungsstoffe wird dir das Peeling um die 6 Monate halten, je nachdem wie frisch dein Mandel- und Hanfsamenoel ist. Da in dem Produkt kein Wasser enthalten ist, ist ein Konservierungsstoff nicht zwingend noetig. Wenn du aber Bedenken hast, dass irgendwie Wasser reinkommen koennte (in der Dusche oder so) kannst du ein Konservierungsmittel benutzen. Ich weiss nicht in welchem Land du lebst, aber hier in den USA finde ich Optiphen ganz ok. Wenn du nur die Haltbarkeit der Oele verlaengern moechtest kannst du auch etwas Vitamin E Oel hinzufuegen, dies verhindert zwar keine Bakterien aber verhindert, dass die Oele ranzig werden.
Ich hoffe das war jetzt nicht zu verwirrend...
Lass, mich wissen ob du noch Fragen hast. Gruesse, Celine
~~~
Englisch Translation:
Technically a preservative wouldn't be needed in this scrub since it doesn't contain any water. If you're worried that water might get into the product (in the shower, eg.) or if you're planning to sell I would advice using a preservative, like Optiphen. The scrub should be good for at least 6 months depending on the freshness of the oils you're using. You could add some vitamin e oil to prevent your oils from going rancid and extending shelf life (this will not prevent bacterial growth).