Natural Exfoliant - For sensative skin

Exfoliation is a key step in maintaining healthy skin. It removes any dead skin cells and dirt from the skin surface and encourages new skin cells to grow.

Unfortunately, for those like me with sensitive skin or a glycerin allergy almost ALL of the commercial and chemical products leave your skin bright pink and burnt for days rather than fresh, clean and glowing.

Salt scrubs are a great, natural way to solve this problem. But they can leave your skin dry, and often feel too abrasive.

Here is the simplest solution! In only 2-3 steps you can have a low-abrasion sugar scrub that will work for most skin types.

Step 1: Ingredients

You will need

-Brown sugar
-Caster sugar or small grained white sugar
-Ground spice of your choice. (Cardamom is good for scent, I have chosen Ginger because it has ant-bacterial properties, and I like the smell)
-(Not pictured) Something to contain the ingredients (and old coffee jar is perfect)

Step 2: Preparing measurements

The measurements all depend on how much scrub you wish to make. basically you want to have 2 parts brown sugar to one parts white sugar, and add a teaspoon of spice at a time until you can smell it when mixed in.

I have used 1 cup of brown, 1/2 a cup of white and 1 tsp of Ginger to fill a small 250g coffee jar.

Step 3: Mix

You want to make sure all the sugar is mixed, the white sugar will prevent the brown from clumping and crystallizing, so you want to make sure its all combined.

Step 4: Final product.

Transfer the sugar to a air-tight container, and you are done.

How to use:
-Wet the area of skin you wish to scrub
-Tip out small amount of scrub into one hand.
-wet your finger-tips of the other hand and use them to pick up small amounts of the sugar.
-Scrub your skin, remember to be gentle, too much scrubbing will damage new skin as well as old.
-Rinse everything well and clean any spilled sugar.

Comments

[Mauigerbil]

How lovely! I will try this!

[bwaller]

would this be good to use instead or soap? i got really bad eczema i officially had to give up using soap? thanks

[Tiktaky]

Unfortunately this is not a cleanser. You can add a soap free product (I use one called "QV cleanser") in conjunction with this scrub,

Oil based products are probbaly better (depending on the severity of your eczema) I have heard that Canola oil works well to clean sensitive skin.

(here is an instructable that talks more about oil as a cleanser http://www.instructables.com/id/Wash-Your-Face-With-Oil/ )

If you have very bad eczema I would recommend only using brown sugar, No white sugar at all. and make sure you test it on a durable patch of skin to make sure you have no reactions to the intensity of the scrub.

[bwaller]

thanks :D

[lapkarian]

when you say you add ground ginger, do you actually use fresh ginger or like the already ground ginger in the spice aisle?

[Tiktaky]

I used dry powdered "ground ginger" from a spice jar, as it is often more dull than fresh ginger. If your skin can withstand a bit more heat (as ginger can be quite hot on the skin) You can use fresh ginger, But make sure to add less at least until you know how your skin will react.

[NamOoni1974]

Thanks for the instuctable! I have been looking for a exfoliant for my super sensitive skin. I enjoyed this.

[kelseymh]

Nice Instructable! Just one small suggestion, get rid of the "product placement" picture in your intro (or at least move it to an "alternative" or "secondary" image. Put up the final picture showing your result instead.

As it is, the thumbnail and title together make this look very much like SPAM, and people are less likely to read it.