I looooooooove a good sugar scrub. Where once my pale, sensitive baby skin feared smearing itself in sugar and oil lest the bacteria take hold and make me break out, I now luxuriate in a scrub at least weekly. Why? It’s so cheap and easy, why wouldn’t you?

Every scrub I make comes together in my kitchen in 5 minutes or less. In the shower, I notice I’m running low and go make another one. No $10-20 scrubs purchased from retailers I’d have to remember to get or order online and wait to receive. No siree, you just crank another of these babies out.

The ingredients? 

• Oil
• Sugar
• Honey
• Coffee Grounds (Optional)

I typically stock olive oil, coconut oil, almond oil, and sesame oil in my house. Today, I found I was out of coconut, and I felt sesame would clog my pores so it’s always a no-go (despite its being very popular in a lot of body products so I have no data to support my claim). Olive and almond it is. Though subtly different, they’re all good to get you nice and oily. 

I like to use brown sugar because it’s grainier, but you can use simple white sugar too. Honey makes a great binder to keep everything together. Stick it in the microwave for a minute before you mix it into your scrub so it disperses well. Once it cools, it’ll hold your scrub together better. The caffeine in coffee grounds helps perk up your skin by stimulating blood flow, and coffee is a natural, biodegradable exfoliator so it helps the environment too.(Have you heard about microbeads in cleansers disrupting the marine food chain? Well it was bad and we banned them.)

The amount of ingredients? When it looks right. Roughly, I start with a cup of sugar, half a cup of coffee grounds, three to four tablespoons of oil and two tablespoons of honey. Then I mix to find out what I need. Too oily and it won’t stay together? Add more sugar or coffee grounds. Too dry and doesn’t look mushy enough? Add more oil. And, if you want a nice scent at the end, add 5-10 drops of your favorite essential oil to make it smell even better.

Wham, bam, thank you ma’am, you’re back to great skin care