How to Make Your Own DIY Body Scrub

Green tea, chocolate, and lemon all sound like yummy ingredients found in drinks and goodies at your favorite coffee shop. But these same ingredients will keep your skin smooth this summer as vital elements in super exfoliating body scrubs. And after days in the sun resulting in rough, dry skin, you’ll welcome a good skin scrubbing.

But no need to run to the spa just yet: These are DIY scrubs you can make yourself in a few simple steps.

Base Ingredients: Every body scrub has the same vital elements. The first is an oil. We recommend extra virgin organic coconut oil for its antifungal properties, easy absorption and heavenly scent. Other oil options include almond, avocado or walnut oils, though coconut oil is our favorite. The second basic ingredient is the main exfoliator—either sea salt or cane sugar. Sea salt gives you a more vigorous exfoliation due the size of its crystals, while cane sugar’s fine crystals lend a softer scrub to your skin. Start with half a cup of oil and half to full cup (depending on the recipe) of either sea salt or cane sugar. Mix together and melt oil over a low heat until liquefied.

Customizable Ingredients: Here’s where you can get creative! Ingredients like lemon zest, coffee grounds, essential oils and chocolate make your DIY scrub rejuvenating, relaxing and infuse skin with antioxidants. Here are two of our favorite scrub recipes, courtesy of YouBeauty.com.

Lemon Poppy Seed Cookie ScrubIngredients:4 lemons1 tablespoon poppy seeds1 cup sugar1 teaspoon vanilla extract¼ cup cornmeal½ cup coconut oilDirections: Zest the lemons, then leave the zest to dry for one to two hours. (If you don’t have a zester, remove the lemon peel with a vegetable peeler and then mince the peel with a knife.) In a bowl, mix poppy seeds, sugar, cornmeal, vanilla and lemon zest. Pour the oil over the ingredients and mix to combine.

Java Mint ScrubIngredients:½ cup coffee grounds2 tablespoons mint leaves or 2 peppermint tea bags½ cup sugar½ cup coconut oil

Directions: If you’re using fresh mint, pluck all the leaves from the stalks and spread onto a cookie sheet. Bake at the lowest temperature for one hour. Let the leaves cool completely before crumbling them between your fingers into a powder. If you’re using peppermint tea bags, snip open the bags and use the leaves. In a bowl, combine coffee, mint and sugar. Pour the oil over the ingredients and mix to combine.

These recipes will keep for up to three months when stored in a sealed jar, so use them out regularly (1-2x a week) to keep your body skin glowing!

DIY Scrubs for Healthy Body SkinYou take meticulous care of the skin on your face, but what about the rest of you? Often neglected, the skin on your body needs gentle loving care, too! And one of the best ways to keep the skin on your body glowing and youthful, from head to toe is with a do-it-yourself (DIY) body scrub. Using the same base ingredients of oil (virgin coconut, almond, and walnut oils are the most popular oils) and either sea salt or cane sugar mixed and melted together, add customized ingredients like chocolate, coffee grounds, lemon and essential oils.

DIY body scrubs can rejuvenate your skin, infuse it with anti-aging antioxidants and lift your mood. Check out the blog at AngelLift.com for two of our favorite recipes that utilized the healing powers of lemon, vanilla, coffee and peppermint.

Exfoliate from Head to Toe with DIY Body ScrubsEven though the skin on our faces is different from that on our bodies, that doesn’t mean we can forget about body skin. To the contrary, the skin on our bodies needs heavier exfoliation to rid it of dead skin cells and keep it glowing and youthful.

Most spas offer sophisticated body scrub treatments, but you can find results-oriented body scrub ingredients right in your kitchen or grocery store. Ingredients like essential oils, citrus fruits, coffee and chai offer skin a plethora of skin rejuvenating effects. Customize your DIY body scrub with ingredients like these, and add them to the two base ingredients in all scrubs: oil and sea salt or cane sugar. You can use oils like organic virgin coconut oil, almond oil or walnut oil. And for the level of exfoliation, choose sea salt for a heavier exfoliation and cane sugar for a lighter one. Find two popular body scrub recipes on AngelLift.com and exfoliate away!