Salt Scrub, page 132
My favorite section of all! This is pure fun, functional, bath time joy. I had so much fun writing the following recipes, trying them out, and gifting them to friends. Try an exfoliating scrub, a nourishing tub tea, or a stress-reducing bath salt! Who doesn’t love a good bath?
Lavender and Chamomile Tub Tea
Scrubs are an important part of skin care as they help remove flaky dead skin and can increase healthy cellular turnover. Here’s a variety to get you started.
Salt Scrub
(Body Polish)
Salt is a great pH balancer on the skin, drawing toxins, yet gently exfoliating. This recipe has just the right amount of oil and soap to get a great clean yet leave your skin soft, supple, and glowing!
1 cup salt (I used pink himalayan)
3 tablespoons dried rose petals
3 tablespoons castile soap
2 tablespoons sunflower oil
5 drops ho wood essential oil
Makes about 1¾ cups.
Mix all ingredients together well, bottle, label, and enjoy!
To use, take into shower and scrub a small amount onto wet skin. Rub in until dissolved, rinse off excess, towel dry when finished, and enjoy your incredible skin!
SALT SCRUB PROMPT
Use sugar, different salt, vary the herbs or use none at all, or try with different essential oils. This is one of those recipes that really allows you to have some fun!
This scrub does a lot! It exfoliates, reduces cellulite, and nourishes naturally. It’s a perfect circulatory-enhancing, awesome, moisturizing sugar scrub that will leave you glowing, gently moisturized, and smooth!
120 grams organic white sugar
7 grams coffee ground or espresso
20 grams grapeseed oil (or whatever you prefer)
5 grams castile soap
1 pinch each of the following spices (optional): cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove, cardamom
Makes 5½ ounces.
Blend dry ingredients together. Add wet ingredients to the dry and blend well. Scoop into jars, cap, and label.
To use, take into shower and scrub a small amount onto wet skin. Rub in until dissolved, rinse off excess, towel dry when finished, and enjoy your incredible skin!
Coffee and warming spices stimulate circulation, aiding the body in eliminating toxin buildup that can be responsible for cellulite.
These are whipped sugar scrubs with the addition of herbs to add color: indigo, alkanet, beet, and turmeric.
The coolest thing about this recipe is that because the arrowroot is so light and fluffy in nature, it is suspended in the cocoa butter and castile soap blend so a blender isn’t necessary.
½ ounces cocoa butter
½ ounces castile soap
1 ounce castor sugar
½ ounces arrowroot powder
Makes 3½ ounces.
Simply melt cocoa butter in a heatproof container over double boiler, remove from heat when fully melted, and add in castile soap. Mix this well, and it will turn a creamy color. Add sugar and mix again before adding arrowroot. Stir until fully incorporated; it will be nice and smooth and whipped-looking. Put your mixture into containers, cap, and label.
To use this wonderful, skin softening, exfoliating, cleansing, and moisturizing blend, scoop a little into your hands and apply to wet skin. Rub in well and rinse off. Enjoy!
I serendipitously created this recipe for you while writing this book. I was messing around in the kitchen, trying to make something else, and this came about. Part of making your own formulations will always thrive with keeping an open mind to experimentation, and as long as you learned something, there are no failures. Yes, I’ve tossed many, many, many more projects than I can count, but I’ve learned from every single one, and in the process, made some pretty cool products. This is for you.
This is a super simple and straightforward recipe. Its job is to exfoliate and moisturize. I find regular sugar to be too harsh and sharp on the skin, so this recipe calls for castor sugar because it lends itself to a very lovely exfoliation.
¼ ounce coconut oil
4 ounces cocoa butter
13½ ounces castor sugar
Makes almost 18 ounces.
Melt coconut oil and cocoa butter over double boiler. When fully melted, remove from heat, add in castor sugar, and mix well.
Scoop your sugar scrub mixture into any mold you have on hand. (I like to use ice cube trays because they seem to be a perfect size.) Tap your mold on the countertop to even out the scoop of sugar scrub. Set your mold aside to solidify, or stick in the freezer for a faster solidifying time. When your scrubs are solidified, pop them out of molds, stick them in a jar, cap, and label.
To use while bathing, wet skin with warm water and gently scrub your skin all over. Rub in with more warm water until you feel fully exfoliated and marvelous. Rinse off sugar, and enjoy your well-moisturized skin!
SUGAR SCRUB PROMPT
Try adding natural powdered colors or scents to create a wide variety of sugar scrubs.
Just like tea to drink is good for your insides, a nice bath or tub tea can be great for your outsides!
Lavender and Chamomile Tub Tea
This tea is great to drink, and just as good to soak in!
1 ounce dried lavender
1 ounce dried chamomile
Makes 2 ounces of tub tea.
Put herbs into a 4x6–inch muslin bag, pull strings tight, and tie.
To use, toss bag into bathtub as it fills with warm water. Then step into bathtub and soak!
Feel free to omit the bag if you don’t mind floating herbs in your bath. In that case, simply put herbs in a jar instead and scoop into bath with a spoon.
Milk Bath
Milk is incredibly soothing and softening for the skin. You can use any type of dried milk powder you like.
1 cup powdered coconut milk
1 tablespoon shaved cocoa butter bits
2 tablespoons hibiscus
Makes about 1 cup of milk bath.
Place all ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Pour mixture into jar with lid, cap, label.
To use, pour ingredients into bathtub and fill bath with warm water. Step into tub and soak!
This is a wonderful blend for dry skin, irritated skin, flaky patches, and poison oak.
1 cup oats, ground to powder
1 tablespoon powdered nettle
1 tablespoon powdered astragalus
1 tablespoon powdered lemon balm
Makes about 1 cup of oatmeal bath.
Mix all ingredients together, bottle, cap, and label.
To use, scoop three tablespoons into running bath water, soak, and enjoy!
Chocolate and Roses Bath
1 cup magnesium salt (Epsom salt)
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon cocoa butter shavings
1 tablespoon rose petals
1½ tablespoons cocoa powder
⅛ teaspoon vanilla powder
Makes about 1¼ cups.
Measure out the magnesium salt and add the honey. Squish honey into salt with your hands until well incorporated, then add the rest of the ingredients. Stir (or squish!) to combine. Pour into jar, cap, and label.
To use, pour any amount you’d like (as little as 2 tablespoons and as much as the whole mixture) into running bath water and mix in. Bathe, enjoy!
A NOTE ABOUT BASIC BATH SALTS
I use magnesium sulfate (Epsom salt) for almost all my bath salts and add just a bit of other salts if I want variety. Magnesium has incredible stress-reducing abilities; our bodies cannot digest basic life stressors without it.
This is why you soak injured body parts in magnesium baths; it brings down swelling and inflammation, it increases healing, and it decreases pain and bruising because it literally helps your body take care of that physical stress. If you have shaky or painful hands from arthritis, magnesium soaks can help. If you want to increase healing of broken bones—magnesium. If you are having anxiety, emotional upsets, shock from trauma, or are grieving, use magnesium. It helps our bodies digest emotional stress, too!
Just make sure to use on closed skin only.
Another fun fact about magnesium is that, as important as it is for us, we have a hard time digesting it. It goes straight through our bodies, which is why, internally, it works so well as a laxative. However, we can absorb it very well through our skin (transdermal absorption). No need to worry about absorbing too much this way because our bodies are magical and don’t allow that to occur, which is why super-saturated flotation tank therapy works so well.
I could go on and on about magnesium, but I think you get the gist.
Other salts are great, but they just aren’t magnesium. That being said, other salts have varying mineral contents, so I like to add certain ones, for skin health, to Epsom salt blends.
Basic Bath Salts
2 cups Epsom salt
2 ounces essential oil of your choice
2 tablespoons dried herbs of your choice
Makes about 2 cups of bath salts.
Mix all ingredients together, bottle, cap, and label.
To use, pour a few tablespoons or half the batch into warm running bath water. Immerse your body, soak, and enjoy!
Orange and elder is a soothing, uplifting blend, helping to invoke feelings of joy.
2 cups Epsom salt
4 drops patchouli essential oil
10 drops bergamot essential oil
10 drops sweet orange essential oil
10 drops blood orange essential oil
1 tablespoon dried elder flowers
1 tablespoon dried orange peel bits
Makes about 2 cups.
Mix Epsom salts and essential oils well, add herbs, and mix again. Scoop into jar and label.
To use, pour 2 tablespoons or up to the whole jar into the bathtub and run warm bath water. Step into bath, soak, and enjoy.
Fizzing Bath Salts
These add an effervescent twist to bath time with their instant fizz when they hit the water. My kids love these!
½ cup baking soda
2 cups Epsom salt
essential oils if desired
¼ cup citric acid
⅛ cup arrowroot powder
Makes about 3 cups.
Mix Epsom salts and essential oils well, add powders, mix, scoop into jar, label.
To use, pour 2 tablespoons or up to the whole jar into the bath, run warm bath water, step into bath, enjoy.
Just for fun, theses are wonderful additives to invoke a joyous bathing experience for all ages.
Whole Body Green Tea Skin Mask
Revitalize skin with invigorating antioxidant-rich green tea while pulling out toxins and toning skin with this delightful recipe!
3 ounces Basic Facial Mask (see page 56)
6 ounces glycerin
1 ounce green tea powder (matcha)
1 ounce arrowroot powder
Makes 11 ounces.
Blend all ingredients together in a bottle, cap, and label.
To use, apply a small amount to wet skin, rub in, rinse off, and enjoy your refreshed skin!
Basic Bath Bomb
Bath bombs are an easily varied recipe, great to try out with various herbs colors, scents, and shapes.
2–3 tablespoons coconut oil
1 cup baking soda
½ cup citric acid
¼ cup arrowroot powder
essential oils, if desired
1–3 teaspoons distilled water or hydrosol in spritzer bottle
Makes about 2 cups.
Melt coconut oil over double boiler. While coconut oil is melting, blend together powder ingredients in a mixing bowl. Once coconut oil is melted, slowly pour half of it over your powder mixtures and blend. Mixing with your hands to crush lumps, then add the rest of the oil. If you are adding essential oils, now is the time.
Spray about 8 spritzes with your water over the mixture and keep moving with your hands until mixture just starts holding together. Once mixture is holding together, press some firmly into a mold design of your choice. Fill mold and press as hard as you can to create a solid cake.
Now, line a cookie sheet with freezer paper and hit your mold against the cookie sheet so the bath bomb pops out. Leave on cookie sheet for 24 hours in a safe, dry place. Then, wrap in parchment or waxed paper and label.
To use, pop in a warm bath and watch the magic happen!
coconut oil, citric acid, baking soda, distilled water, arrowroot powder
BATH BOMB PROMPT
What types of ground herbs could you add to create colorful bath bombs?
