How To Make Homemade Salt Scrubs

Regularly exfoliating sloughs away dead skin cells, improves skin texture and unclogs pores, according to the Pierce Mattie Beauty Pro Division. Although you can purchase store-made exfoliating scrubs for as much as $10 or more per jar as of July 2010, making your own boils down to mixing a few ingredients together and storing them in a glass jar.

Salt makes an ideal exfoliating medium because it’s cheap, readily available and has the correct texture. Salt is also regularly used to encourage healing, such as in salt-water gargles after dental surgery. According to “Homemade” by Reader’s Digest Books, making your own exfoliating salt scrubs can cost as little as 50 cents per use.

Step 1

Pour salt into a medium bowl. Estimate 1/4 cup salt or less per body scrub use. Use coarse sea salt or kosher salt for the ideal texture, although you can substitute table salt in a pinch.

Step 2

Add an equal amount of oil to the salt. If you measured out 1 cup of salt, add 1 cup of oil. You can use almost any carrier oil, including olive, macadamia, jojoba or sweet almond oils. Stir the oil and salt together with a spoon until well blended.

Step 3

Add essential oils or other scents if you so desire. Options include 2 tsp. of vanilla, almond or peppermint extracts per cup of salt used, or 4 drops of citrus, rose or mint essential oils per cup of salt used. Mix again until thoroughly blended.

Step 4

Pour your homemade salt scrub into a glass jar with a tight-fitting lid. Store by the tub or put away to give later as a gift.

Tips and Warnings

To use your homemade scrub, thoroughly wet your body in the shower or bath. Massage the salt scrub gently into your skin and rinse clean. The downside of using salt for body scrubs is that it will burn in any minor cuts or abrasions. You can avoid the burn by substituting sugar instead of salt. Start with half the amount of oil you would have used for the salt scrub, then slowly add more oil until the sugar mix reaches your preferred consistency.