This easy sugar scrub recipe is perfect for beginners. Just 2 ingredients needed for the basic recipe, then customize your scrub however you like. Customizing tips and ideas for customizing are included in this recipe!
You wanted to simplify your beauty routine by going green, and making your own DIY products. Instead you’ve got thirty-three browser tabs open with DIY beauty tutorials that require obscure ingredients you’ve never heard of, pricey additives, and a PhD in cosmetic chemistry to create.
This sure seems complicated!
Save those more complex recipes for another day, my friend, because I’ve got the perfect easy, inexpensive project for you, even if you’ve never made a DIY skin care product before.
- This recipe eliminates dry, ashy legs, and smooths rough feet and bumpy arms.
- It’s crafted with everyday ingredients I guarantee you have in your kitchen right now.
- And is so simple that at my daughters nine-year-old birthday sleepover, when a gaggle of giggling girls spontaneously decided to make some “spa stuff,” this is the project I whipped out.

The Easy Sugar Scrub Recipe for Softer, Healthier Skin
Sugar scrubs are so super simple to make. You nearly can’t mess them up, and if you do you can always fix them. So if you’re a little timid with DIY, they’re the perfect product to start with.
Sugar scrubs come together in just seconds and use ingredients you already have on hand. No need for specialty ingredients or tools. Just stir together sugar and oil and boom! You’ve made an awesome sugar scrub.

But Does Easy Mean Ineffective?
Even if this is your first foray into handmade skin care, you’ll get an impressive, pro-quality product. It’s so effective, that it’s one of the products I teach all my students to make in my free online course Handmade Skin Care for Beginners.
This easy sugar scrub recipe gives soft and silky skin after just one use. After several uses, your skin will be more supple and moisturized.
Start with just two ingredients to make this easy sugar scrub recipe, then customize it the way you like. In the instructions below you’ll get ideas for how to customize the basic recipe.
Whip this up for an easy, all-natural way to exfoliate and soften your skin. This recipe also makes a fun girl’s night project, or an easy and inexpensive sleepover craft for teens and tweens.
Follow this ultra easy recipe to get a swoon-worthy, professional quality body polish—no cosmetic chemistry PhD needed.

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Easy Sugar Scrub Recipe
This recipe makes just over 8 ounces of scrub, or enough for approximately 4 whole-body scrubs or 20 hand or foot scrubs. A custom version of this recipe is featured in my free Handmade Skin Care for Beginners e-course. Shelf life of this scrub is about 6 months.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup granulated white sugar
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil (such as olive oil, sunflower oil, sweet almond oil, etc. Use whatever you have in your pantry)
Optional Ingredients for Customizing:
- 25 drops essential oil (some favs to try are lavender, juicy blood orange, spearmint, eucalyptus, or bergamot. If you can’t decide, consider this essential oil sampler kit so you can have a few to experiment with.)
- 1 teaspoon dried herbs or dried flower petals
- 2 to 5 drops food coloring in your choice of color
Needed Supplies:
- Small mixing bowl
- Silicone spatula or mixing spoon
- Measuring cups
- Jars or containers to package your scrubs
Instructions:
Step 1: Combine base ingredients
Place sugar into a bowl. Add in 1/3 cup of oil and stir until well blended.
If the sugar scrub seems too dry for your liking add more oil, 1 tablespoon at a time, until you get the consistency you like. Remember, this is personal preference so don’t worry about “messing up.” You won’t, I promise.
Step 2: Customize your scrub
If you’d like to dress up your sugar scrub, you can add optional ingredients now. This is completely up to you, though; the scrub is lovely as-is.
- Stir in essential oils of your choice for scent.
- Mix in dried herbs or dried flower petals (they must be dried, not fresh).
- Add cocoa powder, dry clay, or ground coffee beans—1 teaspoon measurement for each.
- Stir in 2 to 5 drops of food coloring. (You can add a few extra drops to get the color you’re looking for.)
Note: When used at just a few drops per ounce of scrub, food coloring won’t stain your skin or tub. Kids in my children’s crafting classes have used wayyyyyy more food coloring than I’ve suggested above, without a stained-child among them.
Step 3: Package your scrub
When you’re happy with your scrub, package it in a small container with a lid. I often use mason jars and upcycled jelly jars, but I also have a freakin’ obsession with these jars and wooden scoops. They look so cute lining the bathroom counter, and the 8 ounce size is perfect for this sugar scrub.
How To Use: Massage over the entire body in the bath or shower, using circular motions. Rinse well with warm water.
Please take care; this scrub can make the tub or shower floor slippery!
Important Note: Never store your sugar scrub in the shower or dip into the jar with damp hands. Water will cause bacteria, mold, and yeast to grow in your product (ewwww!) Instead, scoop out a single use (several tablespoons) into a shatter-proof container and take that into the shower with you. Leave the full jar nicely dry on your shelf.
Want More Easy DIY Skin Care Recipes?
Are you amazed at just how easy that sugar scrub was? There are sooo many homemade skin care products you can make, just with ingredients you have in your pantry.
If you liked this recipe, sign up for my free email course Handmade Skin Care for Beginners. In it you’ll learn how to make 7 more easy, all-natural skin care products with simple kitchen ingredients. I’d love to count you as a student, my friend.
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What kind of food coloring do you use? Does it dye your skin?
Thank you
Hi Heidi! That’s a great question and one I often field in my live classes, so thanks for reminding me that I need to put the answer in this post.
You can use whatever food coloring you have on-hand, either liquid or gel, all-natural or FD&C.
Food coloring will not stain the skin when added to a DIY skin care product. I’ve even taught kid’s classes where the little ones puts looooots of food coloring in their little handmade products and never had a problem with staining.
That said, you’ll generally not need any more than 1 drop food coloring per 1 ounce of scrub. So, for this recipe you could go up to 8 drops food coloring easily. The gel food coloring is typically more potent than liquid, so for gel I do less than half that amount for the same end color result.
Of course, food coloring will stain if you get it on the skin undiluted.
Thanks for the question, Heidi, and I’m so glad you stopped by.
Happy crafting!
Angela
My oil is settling at the top. Is this normal?
Hi Angela thanks for the nand scrub I’m going to try it , I would like to make a moisturizer body butter,if you can Kellar me why my butter got grey things on it…? Enjoy your planting I’m a Gardner too .thanks
Audrey
Hi Audrey! Thanks so much for your comment.
So, tell me more about these grey things on your butter. Are they on a straight shea butter or cocoa butter that you have not crafted with yet? Sometimes these butters can get a bloom on them, but they’re not typically grey.
If the grey things are on body butter that you’ve made, it may be mold (this is most definitely true if you’ve used water or another liquid in your body butter without using a preservative.)
I’d love to help you figure this out, so feel free to post any pics with your reply. You can also email me if that’s easier for you. I know you’re one of my newsletter subscribers, so just reply to any newsletter. 🙂
Angela
is raw brown cane sugar okay?
Yes, you can absolutely use raw brown cane sugar! It will make a lovely scrub. I’d leave out any additional colorants with the brown sugar, though, as you’ll end up with a “muddy” color. The look of the brown sugar is pretty when left natural anyway. 🙂
Thanks so much for your comment! Happy crafting!
Angela
This looks so good! What a fun gift to make for friends or to enjoy yourself!
Thanks for sharing! Does it keep long?
This scrub will keep about 6 to 8 months on the shelf, provided no water gets inside the jar. So, no dipping damp hands into the scrub and don’t store it in the shower. Instead, measure out enough scrub for a single use into a small, non-breakable container and take that into the shower. Store the jar of scrub on the bathroom counter/shelf where it won’t get wet.
Hey Angela!
Could I use coconut oil for the sugar scrub?
You could use coconut oil for sure. Just know that if you store the sugar scrub in a cool place, your scrub can get a bit hard or solid. This is because coconut oil is solid at temps of less than 76 degrees (most cases). If your sugar scrub does get too solid to use, just put it in a warm area to soften. You can also stir in one or two tablespoons of liquid oil along with the coconut oil to help keep it soft. 🙂
This looks so good! What a great gift to make for friends or to enjoy yourself!
Thanks for sharing! Can I add other scents in?
Yes, absolutely! Just make sure the scents your add are skin safe (i.e. cosmetic grade fragrance oils and/or essential oils safe for topical use.)
What should the consistency be before jarring it?
You’re looking for a scoopable consistency, similar to a thick pudding. 🙂
Hi this looks amazing. Can I add lemon juice to make it smell like lemons?
Hi Addie,
Thanks for the great question. You could add a bit of lemon juice IF you used the scrub right away. Lemon juice will dissolve the sugar, so eventually it would make your scrub soupy (i.e. you wouldn’t want to add lemon juice then let the scrub set on your shelf for a few weeks.)
If you’d like to add a lemon fragrance to your scrub, I’d recommend using lemon essential oil instead. Just a few drops will give you the yummy lemon fragrance you’re looking for without dissolving the sugar, so it would be a shelf-stable scrub.
I like both Rocky Mountain Oil lemon EO and the Mountain Rose Herbs lemon EO. Both are nice quality and good price.
Another fun addition would be dried lemon peel. Lemon peel powder would give a light lemon scent and additional cleansing and toning properties to your scrub. Granulated lemon peel would give additional “scrubby” power to your scrub, since it won’t dissolve away like sugar does.
Thanks for the kind words. I hope you like the scrub and happy crafting!
Angela