DIY Bath: Sugar, salt, and oil

My favorite face scrub is one I make in the kitchen, with olive oil, sugar, salt, and lemon juice. Do-it-yourself bath stuff totally rocks. This stuff is cheap, it scrubs the grease and dead skin off my face very gently, and it leaves skin clean & soft.

I like it not too dry, a little on the oily side. The sugar and salt don’t dissolve all the way, so they’re effectively little bits of scrubby pumice. The lemon juice makes it smell nice. Let me know in comments if you’ve tried this with essential oils or other scents than citrus!

No one could call it really *fancy*, but it works and it feels lovely.

You will feel silly for every $20 jar of adzuki bean or pumice or apricot kernel scrapy-particle crap you have ever bought. Sugar is perfect!

My personal theory about the salt is that it has some good germ-killing qualities. Therefore it must be helpful for acne. I’m sure I made this up.

Mix up a batch and keep it in a jar. Surely, as an addict of fancy bath stuff, you have a lot of different jars and tubs and empty containers you can’t bear to throw away because they seem so useful? Guess what, this is what they’re useful for! It’s best not to mix too much at once, especially in hot weather, so that the oil stays fresh.

I get the lemons from my garden. Hey! That gives me an idea! Locally produced home grown lemons are FANCY. Therefore, my DIY bath scrub is fancy bath stuff! In fact I could write all over the jar with a Sharpie and declare that it is Northern California Organic Meyer Lemon Virgin Exfoliation Refreshing Moisturizing Sandpaper of Fanciness. Yay!

On the way less fancy side: I have found that while traveling, it can be very handy to nip a couple of salt or sugar packets from airport cafes. Then on long plane flights you can scrub your face in the airplane bathroom with it and a little warm water. It helps get rid of the horrible grubby feeling of airplanes.

Has anyone tried this with different kinds of oil? I use olive oil because that’s what I cook with. It might make a difference to use the nicest extra virgin cold press olive oil, and it might not, but I would not know because I am waaaay too snobby to have any lesser types of olive oil in my house. It’s extra virgin first cold press all the way. And in a big metal tin actually from Italy because then sunlight doesn’t get at the oil.