Body & Soul: Skin-Soothing Herbal Scrubs

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Try a scrub with the soothing power of lavender.

5 Soothing Herbal Scrubs:

Refreshing Facial Scrub
Anti-Cellulite Leg Scrub
Gentle Cleansing Scrub
Lavender-Soy Body Scrub
Rosemary Spa-Style Salt Scrub

Beauty Tips: Save Money with At-Home Spa Treatments

Want healthy, glowing skin? Exfoliation is key, and cleansing scrubs should be an important part of your natural beauty regimen. Dead surface skin cells can, over time, build up and become unresponsive to lotions and creams. This gives your complexion a dull, dry appearance since creams, lotions and oils do their job by forming a protective barrier on your skin and locking in moisture. Ridding your complexion of dead, flaky skin will allow these moisturizers to function.

Scrubs are not limited to the face–they can be used all over your body to keep skin soft. Don’t forget rough skin areas like knees, heels and elbows.

When making herbal scrubs, it is important to grind the ingredients as finely as possible. Treat your skin with care and gently scrub in a circular motion. Rinse the skin thoroughly and always pat, never rub, your skin dry. For the body, you can use a scrub with a bit more grit and even apply the treatment with an all-natural skin scrubber, such as a loofah or rough cotton washcloth. Here are some simple herbal scrubs you can make at home using natural ingredients.

Make More Super-Simple Facial Scrubs

These simple beauty ingredients can be used to keep your complexion clean and clear. Mix a teaspoon or two of the chosen ingredient with water (or your favorite cleanser) in the palm of your hand. You can use a clean coffee grinder to process nuts, grains and other scrub ingredients.

Sugar–Brown sugar, raw sugar and granulated sugar all work well to cleanse and soften dry skin.

Nuts–Almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts and pecans all work well. Make sure you use only the meat of the nut and avoid any shells. Shells are too sharp and can tear delicate skin.

Grains–Grains are instant skin scrubbers, and, aside from whole-grain oats, no extra processing is necessary. Try wheat germ, cornmeal, whole-wheat flour and quinoa to keep your complexion healthy.

Fruit peels–Citrus peels can be dried, ground and added to skin scrubs for extra sloughing action.

Fruit pits–Pits such as apricot, peach and avocado can all be ground and added to cleansers, or incorporated in skin scrub recipes. When using stone fruit pits, make sure that you crack them like a nut and only use the soft inner kernel. The pits are too sharp to use on skin.

Did You Know?

Natural exfoliators (or cleansing scrubs) keep your skin healthy and glowing. As an added benefit, they also boost circulation, giving you an extra glow. Depending on your skin type, cleansing scrubs should be used two to three times a week to keep the skin clean and healthy. Despite the name “scrub,” you should be gentle when applying these exfoliators; it takes just light pressure applied in a circular motion to slough off dead skin.


Janice Cox is the author of Natural Beauty at Home (Henry Holt and Company, 2002).

  • Published on Nov 9, 2010
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