Homemade Lemon Sugar Scrub

*I have yet to meet Cristen in person {it will happen girl!} but I'm already in LOVE with her new food blog, Food and Swine.  As a fellow Iowan, she also loves the Midwest and all it has to offer.  Not to mention she has the cutest little piglets running around her farm.  I want to visit!  Today Cristen is showing us how to make a homemade Lemon Sugar Scrub.  Something I've always wanted to make but never knew how. Looks pretty darn easy! 

One thing I'm always looking to create for friends are homemade gifts that involve pampering.  Lemon sugar scrub is one of the most luxurious and easiest things I can put together. This gift is thoughtful, useful and can be made for around $1.00 plus the cost of the jar you put it in.  It works wonderfully on dirty 'garden hands' and when used as a full body sugar scrub, leaves your skin feeling smooth and well nourished. The best part: it only takes minutes to put together!  Let's get started already!

*Full recipe and customization options at the end of the post.

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

Print this Recipe!

by Cristen:  

http://www.foodandswine.com

*Makes two 8 ounce jars of sugar scrub

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

1.  Combine sugar and lemon zest in large mixing bowl.  

2.  Rub sugar and zest together to ‘perfume’ the oils of the lemon into the sugar. 

3.  Add hand soap, oil and lemon juice.  Stir well.  Scoop into jars.  

4.  Decorate with ribbon.

5.  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.