Homemade Sugar Scrub

Today was the last day of Teacher Appreciation and we were to send in "free choice" items. It is almost the end of the school year and I'm a little bit over buying gifts for every holiday and occasion, both real and made up (I'm talking to YOU, Hallmark.) Originally I was going to buy a gift card. But that seemed lame and kind of boxed me into spending a certain amount of money so I wouldn't look cheap.

But then I read my friend Claudine's blog http://www.simplyclaudine.blogspot.com/ about homemade sugar scrub and that seemed like a mighty fine idea. And Claud, I love you, but I'm the kind of girl who needs EXACT measurements, so I went hunting for a more precise recipe than what she had.

The first batch was not so good. I went with half white sugar and half brown sugar and a chocolate smell. It just wasn't a pretty color to give to some one. "I appreciate you, Mrs. Teacher. Here's your jar of oily fat drippings" really wasn't the look I was going for. So we started over.

The second time came out much better. I did mess with the recipe some. This is what we did:

1/2 cup white sugar
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp of clear vanilla extract (remember I wanted a pretty color, so I went with clear. You can use essential oils, but they were upstairs and leaving a wiggly four year old and a bossy 6 year old sitting on the counter with a Costco sized vat of olive oil to go get the oils seemed like a recipe for disaster, hence the vanilla.)

I put it all together and liked the consistency and the smell of it so I doubled the batch and put it in an unlabeled baby food jar. I covered the top of the lid with a circle of cardstock that said "Relax" and a label on the jar that said "Pamper yourself with this homemade sugar scrub by Curly Girly." We tied a ribbon around the lid so the baby food origins couldn't be seen. Husband went to the store and picked up a candle and a loofah to match the scrub and we packaged it all in a cute basket along with some re-gifted body butter (shh!)

Voila! Sugar scrub and accessories are a great, cheap, er, uh, inexpensive gift. The scrub alone will run you a quick $14+ at the mall and it's all stuff from your kitchen! You can also use Baby Oil or almond oil and mint extract. I don't recommend using organic sugar as I read several places that that doesn't work well.

By the way, I am too cheap to throw the ugly sugar scrub away. It's next to my kitchen sink. It's very ugly, but it works great and smells divine. So divine, in fact, that Husband wondered if someone had baked a chocolate cake. The only problem is that I keep wanting to lick my super soft hands.