Hello festive friends! My week of handmade has continued with a great recipe I found for a festive sugar scrub that is now making its way in various states of bubble wrap and tissue paper to friends in far – and not-so-far – flung places in time for Christmas.
The recipe is really simple and it smells delicious. I had most of the ingredients in the cupboard although I’d never thought to combine them as beauty products before! I adapted my scrubs to add a teaspoon of vanilla extract in place of the cinnamon and it works really well. I gave it a wee test on my hand first and the olive oil left my skin super soft.
I got some great airtight glass jars to hold my scrubs but you can easily jazz up some well-cleaned jam jars. Add some ribbon et voila – a lovely present! (I must confess, I’m so fond of this new find I’m going to be ‘gifting’ a jar to myself as well!)
Not long to go now until the big day! Hope you are all enjoying the Christmas countdown and making the most of each and every mulled wine / mince pie opportunity that comes your way! Thanks to Faye Knows Best and the folks over at Superscrimpers for this great recipe! Have you ever tried your hand at making beauty products from your storecupboard staples? I’d love to hear your recipes! xx
Tales of adventure 
Wow, this sounds amazing, and so simple! What kind of brown sugar did you use, or does it not really matter? (For someone with a cookery blog, I get surprising confused by simple things like the different types of sugar available!)
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Hi Katie! It’s really lovely and moisturising. I was surprised how good it was to be honest. I used what we had in the house which i think is light brown soft. I think dark brown would probably give a much deeper aroma so you would probably need to add more cocoa powder. Give it a go and let me know what you think!xx
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Hi Laura,
I tried the scrub tonight – I felt it needed a bit more oil, so I added more and preferred it that way (probably personal preference coupled with the fact I don’t use this sort of product as much as I probably should, so am not as familiar with the desired consistency as others may be!). You are right though, it is really nice and moisturising, it left my skin lovely and soft. I think I would add more cocoa powder next time, too – maybe because I’m a chocoholic, but it didn’t smell as chocolatey as I wanted it to! I had no idea how easy these scrubs are to make, so thanks for showing us how it’s done! Do you have any idea how long they last? Now all I need to do is get some crafty materials to jazz up the recycled mayonnaise jar I used! Oh also, any good ideas to get rid of lingering smells in jars you want to recycle? I want to reuse jars but spend so long trying to shift the smell of the food that was in it previously, half the time I just give up.
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Hi Katie,
Good on you for giving it a go! I have to confess, the more I’ve made this the more I’ve added extra olive oil and cocoa as well. We must be chocoholics together. I thought it was just because I prefer a stronger scent – glad I’m not the only one! I found a recipe for a cranberry scrub recently although am yet to try it. I’ll post it on here if it’s any good!
The Superscrimpers website doesn’t state how long the scrub will last but I’m inclined to say at least 1 month seeing as the expiry date on the individual ingredients is so long. If you’re worry about it going off maybe just halve the ingredients when you’re making it up so you just make fresh each time you want to use it. I really like using it as a hand scrub when I do my nails – makes me feel like I’m having a spa manicure at home!
Food smells in jars is a real pain. Depending how strong they are I’d usually fill the jar with hot water and washing up liquid and leave to soak over night then scrub with fresh hot water and washing up liquid the next day. If the lids are stained I soak them in a mix of bicarbonate of soda and hot water for a bit to try and lift them before giving them a scrub when I’m doing the washing up. It’s worth noting if you’re recycling jars etc for food purposes you should really use fresh lids – you can get them online – but the originals are fine for other purposes so long as they’re clean.
I am sure I heard once about putting half a lemon with bicarb in your fridge to absorb fridge smells – maybe that would work with jars and Tupperware too? Will try and find where I heard it and post here – probably Superscrimpers! If I can’t shift the smell I tend to give up too and take them to the bottle bank to recycle!
Will see what I can dig out!xx
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Katie – as promised, here’s the link. It was salt and lemon!xx
https://www.superscrimpers.com/home-and-garden/housekeeping/zap-home-odours-homemade-tricks/
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Do you know, I put a wee bowl of bicarbonate of soda in the fridge to absorb smells, never thought of trying it to get rid of jar smells, but makes sense, thanks! Also, interesting that you shouldn’t reuse jar lids. Will need to look into buying some then.
I love the idea of a DIY spa manicure – will definitely be giving that a go 🙂 xx
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