This homemade body scrub kind of took on a life of its own.

I started out intending to make something to help with my son’s eczema flareups. It seemed like a lot of my friends’ kids had the same problem, and I was thinking, “Well, I can just toss something together to solve *all* of our problem! This will be great!” But then it became something more.

What I created really did help with Ezra’s eczema. I ended up with some leftover so I thought to myself, “Well, why don’t I just try this stuff on my face and just see what happens. And while I’m at it, my feet, too. Oh and hey, let’s put it on my legs. Actually, why stop there? Arms, neck, it’s all in!!!”

I brought it into the shower and used it as a body scrub and instantly fell in love. I’ve now been using it for a couple weeks, mostly on my feet, and it’s almost completely taken care of my awful, cracked heels. Which is no small feat (feet? Haha), considering even pedicures this time of year can’t really fully help with that problem.

It slowly dawned on me what I ended up creating, totally on accident, was a multipurpose, homemade body scrub. I absolutely love it, so I thought I would share. It will take you about 5 minutes to toss all of this together, and shouldn’t cost you must at all – just a jar and some essential oil, unless you happen to already have both of those on hand!

The concept of a sugar scrub is nothing new, and they’re very easy to toss together – oil + sugar is a great starting base. I decided to add in a few other elements that I knew were soothing to skin, like oatmeal and coconut oil.

I really wanted to include plain rosemary oil, but I only had thieves oil on hand so that’s what I used. Thieves is a combination of clove, lemon, cinnamon, eucalyptus radiata, and rosemary oils. I actually think thieves is probably the power behind this scrub, since this combination of oils is soothing and antiseptic – great for irritated skin. But, even if you leave out the oil, you’ll still get a benefit just from the act of exfoliating your skin.

Toss the oatmeal into a food processor to grind it up into a gritty powder. You may be wondering why I added oatmeal to this scrub, and my thought was that many times in my childhood I had poison ivy and my mom always gave me oatmeal baths to help with the irritation. It was so nice on my skin, and I thought this might have the same effect.

Add it all into a bowl, and mix it up – preferably with your hands! The coconut oil will soften immediately to the touch, so it will really mix in nicely. Once it’s all mixed up, pour it into an airtight jar. I grabbed a jar at Kroger for $2.99 – score! The mixture will settle a little, but you can either shake the jar to mix it back up again or give it a swirl a few times with your finger before using.

This is not meant to be left on the skin since it’s a scrub, but it will moisturize while it’s scrubbing due to the olive and coconut oils. When I used this on my son, I did it right before he took a bath. I scooped out a small amount and gently exfoliated his eczema spots, then wiped it off with a warm, wet washcloth. After he was done with his bath, I made sure to put shea butter on the spots (though the first two nights I forgot this step and the spots were okay even with just the exfoliant having done its work).

After about a week, I saw a huge improvement and decided to stop using the scrub for now. My son’s skin is sensitive, so I didn’t want to exfoliate it long term. And, like I mentioned earlier, since I had some leftover I decided to use it on myself. I kept the jar in the shower, and used it every day.

I wish I had taken before and after shots of my heels to share, because that is where it’s most noticeable. I will be keeping this jar stocked up from now on, because this is really the only thing that’s helped with my heels. They get so dry in the winter, and I am so happy that now that’s not the case! I should note that in the case of my heels, I have not been following up with a lotion so it’s just been the scrub working its magic.

Homemade Body Scrub

Ingredients:

• 1/4 Cup Olive Oil
• 1/4 Cup White Sugar
• 1/4 Cup Oatmeal, ground up in a food processor
• 2 or 3 heaping scoops of Coconut Oil (I used a tablespoon to scoop it out of the jar)
• 10-12 drops of Thieves, or other essential oil of your choice

Steps:

1. Grind the oatmeal up in the food processor until it’s mostly a powder, but you still want it to be a little chunky
2. Dump all of the ingredients in a bowl, then drop in the oil
3. Mix it all together with your hands
4. Pour into a container – I used a 6 oz container, and it was just enough to completely fill the jar
5. Enjoy

That’s it – easy peasy! Let me know if you decide to try this and if it works for you, or if you have a tried and true sugar scrub that’s changed your life! Thanks for reading 🙂