Happy Mother’s Day! I know it is a bit early, but time is running out to purchase or create something meaningful for the Mama in your life. Today the kids and I got busy in the kitchen with basic pantry ingredients to create a one of a kind “Lemon Sugar Scrub” for my Mom and their Grandma. (Mom, I know you’re reading this… surprise!) The project was fun and there was a sugar shower in my kitchen, thanks to a crazy two year old that took me longer to clean up than it did to make the scrub.
This gift is thoughtful, useful and can be made for around $1.00 plus the cost of the jar you put it in. It is great for dirty ‘garden fingers’, and especially useful for getting some of the residual lingering ‘pig smell’ off of your hands. (Not that I’d know that or anything.) *Full recipe and customization options at the end of the post.
Let’s get started already!
Assemble ingredients. Hand soap, oil, jars, essential oil *if desired, 1 lemon, granulated sugar and a lemon zester.
Add sugar to a large mixing bowl.
Put that zester to work and zest the whole lemon.
Add the zest to the sugar. Rub the zest with the sugar. The fragrance of the oils in the zest are released and smell fabulous and much stronger than just stirring them together.
Sample:
Add 1/4 C worth of ‘pumps’ of hand soap. We don’t measure much in our house. Need to work on that.
Add oil… she wanted to do 1 TBSP at a time. More fun that way maybe?
Cut lemon in half, squeeze juice into bowl.
Stir well.
Smoosh with your hands… it is so fun!
Now divide mixture evenly into jars, screw lids on tightly and wrap decoratively with ribbon. And continue to mess around in the sugar. MESS around.
Homemade Lemon Sugar Scrub
by Cristen www.foodandswine.com
Makes two 8 ounce jars of sugar scrub
You’ll Need:
Two 8 ounce canning jars with lids and bands
2 1/2 C granulated sugar
zest of one lemon
1/4 C hand soap (I used Watkin’s Lemon hand soap I bought at Target)
1/3 C oil (any kind works, I like corn oil, or any other plain inexpensive oil)
Juice of 1 lemon
Combine sugar and lemon zest in large mixing bowl. Rub sugar and zest together to ‘perfume’ the oils of the lemon into the sugar. Add hand soap, oil and lemon juice. Stir well. Scoop into jars. Decorate with ribbon.
Directions for washing: Wet hands slightly. Take 1 TBSP of sugar scrub and rub it into hands vigorously for 1 minute. Rinse clean.
These are ways to customize this sugar scrub:
Add lemon essential oil if you want to enhance the aroma of lemon.
Add a little salt if you have greasy hands or really dirty hands. The sugar gently exfoliates and the salt magnifies that effect.
Use more hand soap if you want a better lather.
Use no hand soap and more oil if you are really parched and just want a soothing exfoliant
Change up the scents by using other citrus or other essential oils (the strong ones you find in the health food stores. 3-4 drops will do.) Think about using peppermint oil, almond oil, orange oil, etc.
Use baby oil in place of corn oil if you want a powder-fresh scented scrub.
If the mixture is too wet for your liking, simply add more sugar. Too dry, add more oil.
11 Comments
I will have to make some of this for our mudroom. We use GoJo right now to help with pig smelling hands but I’d much prefer lemon over orange.
That is a great “recipe”!!! I am loving it and I don’t even have pigs!!! Printing this off for a gift idea! Thanks!
Awesome! Thanks Beth Ann! My friend Shannon from Idaho made amazing sugar scrubs for me and that is what got me started making them. I ran out! Enjoy! :)
It seems so simple. Do you think I can achieve the same results without the adorable helper???? All I have are 4 legged ones around the house now. :-)
These scrubs are great before applying a self tanner! Love the lemon scent.
Love this! I’m tempted to head to the store right now to get the ingredients. Thanks!
If you don’t add the soap it is almost edible! (Don’t ask my kids or anything.) Ha!
I love this! I made 12 jars last night for teachers for Teacher Appreciation week! My boys handed them out this morning and they can’t wait to try. We kept a few for the grandma’s and us too! My youngest boy was helping until the NFL Draft came on tv ;)! The life of boys! Thanks so much for the great idea!
Awesome! I hope everyone enjoys! That is one big batch. Happy Mother’s Day to you Tiffany!