Homemade Peppermint Brown Sugar Scrub

Here we have another great Pinterest find:

Tip Junkie Compiled - 14 Easy Homemade Sugar Scrub Recipes

I pinned that honey of a link all the way back in October when I first started getting ready for Christmas. I knew it would make a great "neighbor gift." We recently picked up about six or seven #10 (60 oz) cans of brown sugar from my husband's parents when they were cleaning out their old food storage. The sugar is 'expired' and quite possibly not as good for eating anymore but when I found these recipes I knew they'd be perfect for a scrub. I ended up making sugar scrubs for Alexander's teachers (teacher, parapro, and speech therapist) and for all the ladies at church that I visit-teach (and one or two that I don't). 

All the recipes are essentially the same (sugar, oil, some kind of extract for scent) so I knew I could get away with tweaking and making my own. Corrie's Brown Sugar Body Scrub from Paula Deen's website seemed the nicest, I thought, and I even already had a bottle of Vitamin E to use. My first batch was actually for a bridal shower gift for our brand new sister-in-law and my ever-self-sacrificing hubby braved Hobby Lobby on his way home from work to pick up lavender and peppermint extracts so I could indulge in my homemade gifting plans.

Indulgence for the bride

As you can see, I did one lavender and one vanilla scrub for my bridal shower gift. Then for the rest (I wanted to go more Christmas-y) I went with peppermint. Since I was making so many, I played around with doubling, tripling and quadrupling the recipe and made a few batches over several days. Here's the general gist of my final "mass production" recipe.

4 cups brown sugar

2 cups olive oil

1 tablespoon vitamin E oil (I used Spring Valley Vitamin E Skin Oil from Walmart) 

15-30 drops essential oil (I used Crafty Bubbles Peppermint Essential Oil from Hobby Lobby)

2 tablespoons honey

Combine wet ingredients first (I kept forgetting to do that, but with a little extra mixing they turned out fine). Then add brown sugar and mix well. (When I encountered stubborn lumps of sugar, I just reached in which my hands and smushed 'em good.) Portion into containers and seal tops on tightly. Tie on tags with cutesy ribbon and distribute. :-) 

I used 16oz (2 cups) containers and this recipe only filled two of them. 2 cups is pretty big though so you could definitely go down to 8 oz (1 cup) containers and have a great little gift.

I don't seem to have any pictures of the final Peppermint Scrub product but here are some free printables of the tags I tied on them. 

Click. Save. Print.

Click. Save. Print.

I got the tag itself from the Holiday Recipe Collection over at Shabby Princess. The little blue section is where I put the "To-From" info. I printed the tags on cardstock and then flipped the page over and printed the instructions on the back before I cut them out. That way you've got a nice two-sided tag with everything you need. 


These scrubs would be great gifts any time of year. We've got Valentines day coming up, then Easter, Mother's day, and then it's practically Christmas again right? Just change out the peppermint oil for your recipient's favorite scent and you're golden. :-)