Body scrubs are a dream bathroom item of mine. I make many, and constantly have a jar of scrub in the bathroom with me. Vanilla is my favourite, so that's what I'm going to explain here, but the pictures above were all peppermint. These are so easy to make and everyone has the ingredients in the pantry. If you can't get hold of coconut oil, use olive oil instead.
You need: 1 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup coconut oil 1 teaspoon vanilla essence or 4 drops essential oil (peppermint for cooling and invigorating / Marjoram if you're going for that Radox smell)
Mix together well in a bowl, and store in a glass jar which seals well. The scrub must be very pasty, so if need be add more sugar. The coconut oil simply holds it together and acts as a moisturiser. For more information on coconut simply read our page on it. You can colour your body scrubs by adding a few drops of food colouring.
Variations I make on this are:
Anti-cellulite Scrub For this you use fresh coffee grounds instead of sugar. Caffeine is well known for its ability to combat cellulite and this scrub is a lot less expensive than cellulite creams.
Vanilla: Using scooped vanilla pods instead of vanilla essence Chocolate: Add some cocoa to the scrub and mix well.
Coffee: Add two teaspoons of instant granular coffee to the scrub
Make your own BATH SALTS
To make bath salts all you need is a box of epsom salts, food colouring, and essential oil.
To make it:
2 cups Epsom Salts 5 drops essential oil (or essence if you don't have oils. ie you can use your vanilla essence instead) 5 drops food colouring
Using a plastic bowl, put the 2 cups of epsom salts into the bowl. Add to this the essential oil and food colouring. Mix well. Darken the colour if you like by adding one drop of food colouring at a time and mixing well (a little goes a long way)
Store in a glass jar next to the tub, or reuse a bottle (for easy pouring)
Epsom Salts are magnesium sulphate. Our bodies NEED magnesium for a myriad of health reasons. using this ingredient in your bath relieves tired and aching muscles - because we absorb a lot into our bodies via osmosis. The skin is the biggest organ of the body so always be discerning about what you're going to put on it.
* Don't eat epsom salts. Just one teaspoon will give you diarrhea. It's used for this purpose to do a colon cleanse, so be warned!
With all of these recipes you can get creative. You can add instant coffee to it for a coffee scented bath, or vanilla essence for a vanilla bath (carry the theme across all of your makes to feel like you have luxury at your fingertips), or whatever you have on hand int he kitchen. If you have tea tree oil you can use that for an antiseptic bath, or add menthol if you have a cold and want a mustard bath type experience when you soak in the tub.
You can get Epsom Salts from the baking aisle at the supermarket.
Make your own Bath Bombs
To make your own you will need silicone chocolate molds (or any silicone mold you have at hand). Alternatively you can use chocolate molds - or ice cube trays. In the photos above I used a chocolate mold (hearts), a silicone muffin pan (the big bath bomb), and ice cube trays. Water spray bottle.
Ingredients:
2 cups bicarb of soda (baking soda) 1/2 cup cornstarch (we used Maizena) Essential oil added 1 drop at a time Food colouring Water
Put the bicarb of soda in a big mixing bowl. Add the food colouring now, just 3 drops at first, to get the salt crystals coated with colour. (you can leave this step out if you like) Add to this the cornstarch, and mix well. Then stir in 10 drops of essential oil to match the colour you've chosen. ie yellow if you're going for citrus, green if you're going for tea tree etc. (We used peppermint in the photo above, but again use whatever you want here.) Mix these ingredients together well. The bicarb of soda fizzes when it gets wet, so to bind the ingredients together you have to apply the water bit by tiny bit. This step: spritz the mixture in your bowl with a spray of water and immediately mix together well. Keep doing this until the mixture holds together when you clamp it in a fist (or between two spoons). Once it sticks together it's ready to press into your molds. Don't worry of the mixture fizzes when you spray it, that always happens, just stir the water in as fast as you can. Using a teaspoon fill your molds and compress the 'powder' down as hard as you can. Fill all your molds and leave to dry at room temperature out in the open for 3 days. We just left ours on the kitchen counter until they were dry. Gently press out of your molds and store in an airtight container. (We used glass jars).
To make a ball (of you're using a call shape mold), simply spray one side of the sphere with a little water and immediately pres the other side to it. Hold for a minute, then leave to dry again for another day. (We did this with the muffin mold - as you can see in the photo above).
Again: Colour it to match the scent you've chosen. Using essential oils is easiest and best for this craft project.