Springtime Coconut Lime Hand Scrub

Homemade hand and body scrubs are one of the simplest things you can make, and yet the final result is always something that feels much more expensive and luxurious.  I love their interesting combination of exfoliating and moisturizing at the same time and I’ve become a total convert.  When I use up one batch, I’m off to the kitchen to quickly make another one!

When I first investigated how to make a homemade body scrub, I learned that they’re nothing more than a mixture of either salt or sugar (for the gentle abrasiveness) and an oil (for the moisturizing).  Of course what makes it fun and interesting are the variety of combinations you can make using different oils, scents, and other add-ins.  For me, I enjoy creating scrubs that feel like they fit in with the current season.

Coconut Lime Hand and Body Scrub

For most of the winter I enjoyed my brown sugar body scrub with an almond scent.  It’s warm and woodsy quality felt right for the colder months of the year.  But with spring right around the corner, I decided it was time to mix up a new scrub that felt a little lighter and brighter. How about some coconut and lime?

So for my springtime mixture I used white sugar and coconut oil, with a bit of lime essential oil added in. Of course anytime you use coconut oil in a scrub mixture the coconut scent will always be the first thing you notice, but a citrus scent can mingle in there nicely too.  I happened to have some lime essential oil in the house but an orange essential oil or a lemon essential oil would work nicely too. And if you don’t have any essential oils in the house, you can try zesting a lime (or a lemon or an orange) like I did in this Citrus Scrub recipe from a few years back.

Here’s how to do it:

Springtime Coconut Lime Hand Scrub

Ingredients:

  • 2/3 cup White Sugar
  • 1/4 cup Coconut Oil (melted to liquid form)
  • 10 drops Lime Essential Oil (or zest from a lime)
  • 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon Vitamin E Oil (optional)

Place the sugar in a small mixing bowl.  Pour in the melted coconut oil a bit at a time, stirring as you go, to make sure you have a consistency you like.  If you like a grainer scrub, you may not want to use all the oil.  Add the lime essential oil (or the lime zest) and the Vitamin E Oil (if using) and stir them into the mixture.

Store in a container with a tight fitting lid.

To use: Rub a small amount of the mixture onto moistened skin and then rinse off and pat your skin dry.

Coconut Lime Hand and Body Scrub

A few more notes:

~ The white sugar I used for this recipe was actually the organic Cane Sugar from Aldi that has a slightly tan color.  It still worked fine!

~ Coconut oil is solid at room temperature.  To melt it, I just measure some out into my glass measuring cup and microwave it.  Somewhere between 30 seconds and one minute of microwaving will usually do the trick.

~ The Vitamin E Oil in the recipe is optional but does add some extra moisturizing benefit.  I was able to find my Vitamin E Oil at Target.

~ I labeled this recipe as a “hand scrub” because I like to keep my scrubs by the bathroom sink to use on my hands.  However it works great in the shower too as a body scrub for any skin that can use some exfoliating and moisturizing.

 

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4 Comments

    1. My experience has been that these type of scrubs do not spoil and never get moldy. The only thing you might notice after several months is that the consistency has changed a bit (has gotten a little drier, or harder, or soupier) but even that I don’t notice usually til I am at the very end of a batch.