Does your feet look like the Sahara desert like mine? Or are you the weekly Mani-Pedi type and they look like the baby's bottom? Obviously, I'm not that type and my heels are the tell-tale sign of my highly pampered life. *Cough Cough*
When a chapped piece of skin on my heel scraped my husband's leg under the sheets and he screamed in pain, I figured, it was time to make an effort to really pretend I have a highly pampered life. So, I decided to try exfoliating my heels with those fancy scrubs. But have you seen the prices for some of them? Holy moly, what are they made of, gold??? All I'm going to do is to put it on my feet in the shower and probably wash half the jar down the drain! Sheeesh....
So I decided to make some on my own. After all, I should have all the ingredients, right in my cupboards. So I googled for some homemade recipes and lo and behold, there were a bazillion recipes for scrubs, using ingredients ranging from sea salt, mineral salt, dead sea salt, regular sugar, brown sugar, turbinado sugar, oatmeal, coffee grounds, so on and so on. There were so many, they made my head spin. It's just my heels, for goodness sakes!
But then, I wondered, what's better; sugar or salt? So I did some comparisons.
Sugar Scrub vs. Sea Salt Scrub
After using different versions of scrubs, here is what I noticed, in brief summary.
1. Sugar - was finer than salt so I didn't feel the grains doing anything to my heels. It also melted in warm temperature in the shower quicker so there were less grains to work with.
2. Sea salt - I use Himalayan mineral salt for cooking and I had some in my cupboard but normally, I wouldn't use this type since it's expensive. Any 'fine' sea salt is great for this scrub since you can roll the grains between your fingers and they actually ex.fo.li.ate the rough spots. The ironic fact is, salt dries out skin so don't use it on your face. Since I'm using it as an exfoliating agent, it doesn't stay on my thick heel long enough for it to dry out so salt is ok on the heels. Also, don't use it on open cuts or sores. But I think you know that already.
Sea Salt Scrub
Ingredients
- Fine Dead Sea Salt
- Used coffee grounds
- Olive oil
- Honey
Instructions
1 part used coffee grounds - you can use fresh coffee but used ones work just as well. Coffee grounds works to exfoliate but caffeine in the coffee reduces inflammation so it's great for inflamed eczematous areas as well.
1 part salt - doesn't have to be fancy mineral salt but regular kosher or regular table salt works too. Don't use this scrub for your face.
Olive Oil and Honey - enough to mix the dry ingredients to a paste.
Look how it looks now. Baby bottoms, if you ask me. 🙂
I made a variation of this scrub, sans the salt, and I gave it to my daughter to try it on her dried (and cracked) eczema spot on her wrist, and it worked like a charm! So now, we have jars in both bathrooms and we use it daily. It's inexpensive to make and it really works! If I used it at night, I'd wear thin socks to bed and they kept the moisture and oil working even longer.
NOTE: Do NOT use this scrub for your face as the dead sea salt used in this recipe is too harsh.
Do you have a favorite recipe for natural body scrubs?
Daina says
Oh and p.s...I found a site for people with rosacea that claims using baking soda and hydrogen peroxide on the face with a cotton ball would help the itch and flaky skin of rosacea. You make a paste, dab it on, leave it on until it dries for a little while, then gently use a cotton ball and warm water to remove. Virgin Coconut Oil is then used for moisturizing. The person said it worked better than expensive creams and ointments and cleared up the rosacea...and also advised changing bedding very often as this condition is attributed to mites and bacteria that live in the skin, and the dead skin cells on the bedding give the mites their ability to live. The hydrogen peroxide and baking soda helps to kill the bacteria, get rid of excess skin cells and thus the mites. Don't know if this works but it sounds like common sense. Just thought I'd share if any of your readers are suffering as badly with rosacea as I am. Thanks! 🙂
Daina says
I would just like to offer a caveat on the sugar/olive oil/honey face scrub...I have rosacea. I didn't KNOW I had rosacea..until I used this scrub on my face several days in a row. Little pustules and pimples formed under my eyes and my skin turned beat red and itched like crazy. I thought it was the hard water...but it was only MY face not my hubby's and not our bodies. I had seen this scrub on youtube and thought I would try it. Months later I am still fighting the itchy, unattractive rosacea. On normal skin it would probably be great, but not for one of us Rosaceans! Thanks for your reviews especially the Zero Water..I'm going to get one this week! 🙂
Jenn from Chucka Stone Designs says
Another awesome sounding recipe that is totally timely right now! The temps are back up in the mid 90's in AZ but unlike August when there's at least a slight chance of humidity, I think its negative humidity right now. They don't say its a dry heat for nothing and my skin looks like a pasty alligator purse! If I get a chance to try this out I'll for sure let you know how it works in the desert conditions. Interestingly one of your advertisers, Herban Lifestyle (who's products I ♥), has a great naked makeup remover and I use it as a moisturizer on my face. Since moving here my face has never looked better. So now time to move on to my feet and legs!
ecokaren says
LOL on the Alligator purse. Who has that anymore? Seriously, dry desert heat will be awful on your heels as it doesn't get enough attention. Try this scrub. You'll love it. You should try the sugar though and not the salt. It may dry it out even more. Let me know if it works for you! And drink water!
La Alicia says
excellent timing! With the drought conditions, I was noticing my feet could use some TLC as well. Can't wait to try out your recipes!
ecokaren says
Great! Let me know how you like it. The first time I scrubbed, I used pumice stone to get all the dried out dead cells off the skin. Then, I rubbed the oil from the scrub on my heels and put the socks on before bed. The heels looked great the next morning!
Tiffany Norton says
Great article! Making your own scrubs is lots of fun! I use raw sugar for my body scrubs - just a little scrubbier than the regular sugar, but then I use baker's sugar for my facial scrubs. it has teeny grains that are more gentle on the delicate facial skin.
ecokaren says
You know, I use raw sugar for my coffee and I just couldn't wrap my head around using it for my feet. It would get too expensive. But someone said sugar is cheaper than salt so how knows? But yeah, the baking sugar was a little too fine for my rough heels. I'll try it for my face ... maybe for my next post?
Tiffany Norton says
You can get a big 5 pound bag of the organic evaporated cane juice sugar at Costco for pretty cheap. That's what I use. *shhhhh*
ecokaren says
I wish I had a membership at Costco. 🙁
CurlyMonkeyMama says
Love it!
ecokaren says
Do you use homemade scrubs? What do you use in them?