Onward to my Sunday night experiments -
Body Scrub:
This body scrub recipe came from an e-book I downloaded from www.herbmentor.com. A great and wonderful resource for aspiring herbalists! The ingredients said you could use course or fine salt. I only had course so I took my chances. I also used rose hip oil for the first time (I LOVE rose hips and make infusions out of them all the time but that is for another post). It has quite the strong scent, not bad, but strong - strong enough to overpower my essential oils, which in this batch, I chose eucalyptus and lavender.
The rose hip oil turned the whole scrub orange, which is fine, but it makes me want to make another batch and use orange essential oil. The process of making the scrub was very simple. When I finally got the chance to try it out, I was careful not to literally scrub my body with it. Since it's course salt I wanted to make sure not to damage or irritate my sensitive skin. But I did go to town on my heels and my feet and they feel absolutely heavenly now! In the shower you want to watch out for the salt that's rinsing from your body - make sure it goes down the drain and you're not stepping all over it through the rest of shower. Also, I would recommend you use the scrub after you use your regular soap or body wash. This scrub will leave you feeling a bit oily, but I say embrace it! Our skin is like a big sponge - and in the shower or bath our pores are even more susceptible to the lotions, soaps and washes we put on it.
Although I felt slightly oily (not overwhelmingly so) for a bit after my shower, my skin absorbed it right up. And with that, my body took in vitamin A - which can help delay the effects of aging skin, promotes collagen, and assists with cell regeneration. The high amounts of vitamin E and fatty acids help promote beautiful, healthy skin too.
Next time, what will I do different? A different, less pungent carrier oil - possibly sweet almond oil or grapeseed oil. And a different, stronger essential oil.
Sugar Face Scrub:
This recipe came from the same e-book as the recipe for the body scrub. It called for organic fine sugar. Well, unfortunately this product wasn't already in my cabinet and I wasn't quite sure where to find it. I went to a local store that sells local products along with other natural and organic products. They had organic sugar - made from evaporate cane juice. I decided to roll with it.
I mixed this with rose hip oil and tea tree essential oil (it varies from person to person but my face responds well to tea tree). This was all I had to do - but as I mixed the oil and the sugar, the sugar would start to dissolve. I used a lot more oil than the recipe called for, and I even added a bit of sweet almond oil because I ran out of my rose hip oil. The final product still looked more sugar heavy than it ought to have been but I put it in a jar and labeled it done.
When I used it, it did feel dry but I could feel the oil on my face as it rinsed. My face felt well exfoliated and moisturized for the night. We will see in a few weeks how my skin actually responds to it (will acne decide to rear its ugly head?).
If you have naturally oily skin (and most likely you hate it and try to avoid any kind of extra oil) don't be afraid of these products! These kinds of oils carry essential vitamins, fatty acids and other nutrients that the body and face just crave. If I'm wrong about you in particular, which could happen because every one is different, we'll work together to find a more drying product for you. That sounds like a future post.....
What to change for next time? Probably buy a different kind of sugar. But maybe all sugar will dissolve like that - I just won't know until I try it again, and I intend to.
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