Coconut Sugar Scrub

Are you tired of dry, itchy skin that gets even worse during the cold winter?

Do you long for a luxurious treatment that leaves your skin luxuriously soft and supple, wonderfully moisturized and exfoliated...but can't afford the expensive spas?

Then look no further, my friend!  Today we are diving into the kitchen and creating a Coconut Sugar Scrub that will delight your senses, soften your skin, and be surprisingly simple and inexpensive to make!  Let's get started!

What you need:

1 cup sugar (I love using raw turbinado sugar, it's nice and gritty!)

1/2 cup coconut oil   (found in most grocery stores with cooking oils, also natural food stores)

1/2 tsp. fragrance oils or all-natural essential oils

(more about these ingredients in a minute...)

a plastic or steel mixing bowl 

spoon

rubber spatula

glass measuring cup

plastic 8 oz. jar 

(I bought my jars online from a bath and body manufacturing wholesale company, but you could just wash out and reuse any plastic jar)

About those ingredients:

I used to make soaps and bath products and sell them at craft fairs and online, so I have a plethora of natural essential oils and fragrance oils to choose from here.  There are several good companies online that sell these oils, I happened to use Brambleberry.com and WholesaleSuppliesPlus.com.  You can also buy the natural essential oils at Whole Foods or other natural food stores. 

Coconut oil is also very popular these days for its marvelous qualities on your skin, hair and many other uses for your health.  Refined coconut oil has no smell, but unrefined still has the wonderful coconutty smell that I adore.  Either one is fine.

Step One:

Measure out 1/2 cup coconut oil.  Notice that coconut oil from the jar is thick, like butter.

You need to melt it so it mixes with the sugar properly.  After it cools, it will thicken again.

Place glass measuring cup with coconut oil in microwave and heat on high for 30 seconds.  Stir, and if it's still lumpy, heat again for increments of 10 seconds at a time.

                                                     Here's what it looks like melted:
                                         

                                     Pour coconut oil into bowl.

                        Measure out 1 cup of brown or turbinado sugar, add to oil in bowl.

                                     Add 1/2 tsp. fragrance or essential oil.  (I mixed part coconut fragrance oil with part Tahitian vanilla fragrance oil for a beautiful, tropical scent that reminds me of suntan oil!)

                                                                Mix well.

                                             Spoon into plastic jar.

                                                    Pat it down, make it look nice...

Then set it inside your shower. (It is important to use a plastic container, as the oils make it especially slippery in the shower, and you don't want to risk breaking a glass jar in there!)

                                   When you can't wait another minute and just have to try it, get your                                                shower going...scoop up a little bit with your hand...

...and rub into your skin.  Leave on a couple minutes as you wash your hair, etc., then rinse off thoroughly.  Be sure to clean out the shower floor afterwards, make sure you don't leave any oily remnants that could cause a slip.

Gently towel yourself dry, and enjoy your baby-soft skin!

                                      p.s. be sure to take an extra-long shower so your bathroom is nice and steamy-warm as you put on your fresh pajamas!  Goodnight!!

Van Gogh

"I dream my painting and then I paint my dream." -Van Gogh

I just saw this quote and thought immediately of my previous post, sacred ground.  I read that portion of Brene Brown's book with the quote, "Don't shrink, don't puff up. Stand your sacred ground," and that's exactly what happened: I dreamed.  I visualized.  I saw this scene.  A watercolor pale mix of blues and greens, much more beautiful than I actually created, but it was like the morning mist was lifting, and there I was.  On a path. A natural, organic path, starting from my heart. A wide-open, honest, brave heart.  My eyes on my Maker and the path He is leading me on. 

 No more shrinking.  I am made in His image, I am uniquely and wonderfully made.  No matter what others make me feel.  No matter what physical limitations or insecurities try to tell me.  I am His.  I am the size I am, spiritually speaking, and I like it.  

I don't need to puff up.  Bragging is silly and stupid.  I will do great things for the satisfaction it gives me, not to prove anything to anyone.  

And then...I stand my sacred ground.  The ground that is holy because He who is in me, the One that is greater than the one who is in the world, is in me.  His Spirit resides in me.  This is a holy place.  My sacred ground.  

Whether I walk, whether I stumble and fall, I may or may not move forward in my journey at the rate I would like...but I will stand.  If not physically, I will at least be standing in my spirit.  

That was and is my dream.  So I painted it.  I love it when I see my picture before I paint it.  I love when God gives me visions of things to come.  It doesn't always happen.  Sometimes I'm just mushing paper and paint and glue around on the page and only eeking out a small spark of my heart.  And that's ok too. Because it means something else is stirring in my heart, too big and complicated to be released yet.  But it will. Just gotta keep practicing my art, my soul art.

Keep dreaming, my friend...

sacred ground

Creative Every Day challenge.

Just a quick page in my art journal.

Inspired by one of Brene' Brown's quotes from her book, 

The Gifts of Imperfection.

Mostly watercolor pencils, fine markers.