Talk Clean to Me: DIY Salt Scrub

This is probably my most exciting post yet-- for me at least. I have a facial routine that I have recently realized is awesome on my skin, but not so much on my wallet. As a money saving fanatic, I overstepped my first rule (never purchase anything at full price [M.A.C excluded]) and became obsessed with the Store LUSH. This is Adam's fault. He showed it to me, I can't stop. My absolute favourite product is their Ocean Salt. You really can't beat it. I use it on my face every single day. The people at the store will widen their eyes and step back, but I'm tough. I will rub coarse sea salt over my skin every single day. Or at least I used to. When I had fewer bills and looser spending habits. Now we make a pot of it last 6 months between the two of us.

This morning, I noticed we are running (very) low. So I took a trip around the internet for some DIY recipes. Even lasting 6 months, I can't justify $34.95 for a facial scrub when my entire grocery bill is just over $60.

I was really in the mood to try my hand at making a scrub, but all the recipes I could find called for essential oils and I just don't have any of those at my house! So I went into the kitchen and made it up.

The first batch was a disaster and I'm sad about that because it used a lot of salt, EVOO, and all my lemon juice. Don't use EVOO if you don't want your face to smell like Italian food. I tried everything I could think of to neutralize the smell, but it was just too strong. By the end of it I had an oily mess that looked too similar to pee that I couldn't stand to look at it anymore.

Then I reached for an oil just because I liked the smell. I mixed it with the other things I wanted to throw in there, then hopped in the shower to wash my face. (I can't stand washing my face in a sink. Too much water where I don't want it)

Not to toot my horn too loudly, but I won't be buying Ocean Salt again for a long time. This is so inexpensive and easy to make (and I can't stop feeling my face! So soft!) I really encourage everyone to try this recipe.

Sea Salt: Any type will do. I had fine in my kitchen, but coarse is good too. It hurts though, so be careful haha

Baby Oil: If you don't have any at home, it's only about $4/20oz bottle and that will make about 10 batches, depending on how much you feel like making.

Citrus: I ran out of lemon juice on the crap batch, so I used a clementine.

Vanilla extract: For scent, I think. I don't actually know if vanilla does anything for the skin. It was in one of the recipes I couldn't use so I figured why not.

Now I don't have any exact measurements, I just fiddled around.

Pour your salt into a bowl and then slowly add the baby oil. Put a little in, mix it up and see where that gets you. It will seem like the salt is eating it up and then all of a sudden you might have oil pooling at the top before it even had a chance to sit. It happened to me a couple of times, don't worry.

• If you do end up with too much oil, you can empty your mixture onto a cloth (I used linen, but a tee shirt will do) and squeeze the excess out and let the cloth soak up some too. You might have to repeat this a couple of times
• You also want to probably put in less oil than you think you need because the citrus and the vanilla are also liquid and like I said, the oil pooling.. not so much fun.

It doesn't matter if you add the citrus or the vanilla next, just mix all your ingredients until you have your desired consistency. I think it works when it's like sandcastle sand. It might smell like, and sort of look like tasty and delicious cookie dough, but please resist the temptation or else you will be severely disappointed.

Store it in a tupperware near wherever you wash your face. I recommend scooping it out with a popsicle stick when you use it because you don't want any water to dissolve the salt.

Happy Exfoliating!

:: Celeste