After stressing so much over ingrown hair and spending countless cash on body scrubs and exfoliants, I just went ahead and decided to DIY my own sugar scrub.  I wanted to see if exfoliating more often (maybe even daily) would help avoid my perpetual problem, but I didn’t want to spend all my money on expensive store-bought ones.

It’s really easy and definitely cheaper to have your own homemade sugar body scrub.  For my own, I used these ingredients:

1) 2 parts sugar.  I alternate from white, brown and muscovado.  Use the latter two if you have sensitive skin because they’re more gentle.

2) 1 part oil. I use virgin coconut oil because it’s an excellent natural moisturizer and has plenty of beneficial properties.

This is a mixture of brown sugar and muscovado with virgin coconut oil.

Popular substitutes:

Sugar = Salt (but I often have blisters and open cuts, so I didn’t want salt scrubbing into wounds. Literally.)

Coconut Oil = Olive Oil (Coconut oil is cheaper plus I’d rather just have olive oil on my pasta.)

Application:

People say scrubs are best on dry skin, though I’ve gotten used to applying it on wet skin.  I do either.

Now that I’ve gotten used to making my own scrub, I don’t measure the parts anymore, actually.  It depends on how damp you want your scrub to be.  Just keep mixing them in an empty container (I used my old Mosbeau moisturizer jar) until you get the right consistency.  In that small jar pictured above, I usually do 1-2 scoops of sugar and it lasts for 2-3 baths, depending on how obsessive you can be about scrubbing.  I like doing a small batch so it’s always fresh (since you’re not using artificial preservatives here).  This is also pretty safe to use on your face, but since it has VCO, you might want to skip it if you’re oily.

The good thing about this is that you’ll always feel well-moisturized after your bath, your skin will be soft and smooth.  The bad news is that your bathroom tiles can get a little slippery with the oil, so be extra careful!  Sugar can also be attacked by household ants so make sure you keep it in an airtight container.  If you want guaranteed ant-free, you can try using Muscovado or palm sugar.  I use white sugar most often because no one else uses/eats it at home so I don’t feel like I’m depriving our kitchen of ingredients for cooking and consumption.

I want to start using coffee grounds next, because they’re good for blood circulation and they smell fantastic.  I just hope they don’t clog our drains!  The good thing with using sugar is that they melt very easily so clogging isn’t a problem.  I might also try using a dash of calamansi for every batch.

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