Make your own salt scrub — recipe, ratios and the hard parts

The recipe

• 200 ml sea salt, fine to medium-coarse
• 100 ml neutral oil — sunflower, rapeseed or sweet almond
• Fragrance if you want it, a few drops

Mix salt and oil in a bowl until all the salt is wetted. The consistency should be like wet sand, not like soup: if you can form a clump that holds together, it is right. Too loose, add salt. Too dry, add oil a teaspoon at a time.

Transfer to a jar with a tight lid. Stir before use — oil and salt separate, and they are meant to.

Which salt

Ordinary sea salt works. What to look at is the crystal size, not the name on the packet.

• Fine table salt dissolves too quickly and barely scrubs.
• Medium-coarse sea salt is what usually works best at home.
• Coarse flake salt drags. It feels effective and is usually too sharp for anything but heels.

Getting the crystal size right is the single hardest part, and it is also the only difference you actually feel. More on why is on sea salt in skincare.

Which oil

A neutral, thin oil spreads best: sunflower, rapeseed, sweet almond. Coconut oil sets below 24 °C, which makes the jar hard in winter and runny in summer. Olive oil works but has a scent of its own that takes over anything else you put in.

Oils go rancid over time. A jar that smells sour or of cardboard is finished, however much is left in it.

Fragrance, the tricky part

Essential oils are not dosed by “a few drops until it smells nice”. They have recommended maximum levels for use on skin, and those vary a great deal between oils — citrus oils are one group that needs more thought than most.

If you want to scent it: start low, test on a small area of skin first, and skip it entirely on skin that is sensitive or freshly shaved. This is the part of home-making that is hardest to do responsibly, and there is no shortcut around it.

Water, which is the real problem

A mixture of salt and oil is a difficult environment for micro-organisms — as long as it stays dry. The moment water gets into the jar that no longer holds, and a homemade scrub has no preservative to catch it.

So:

1. Dry spoon, never wet fingers.
2. The jar stays outside the shower.
3. Wipe the rim before closing the lid.
4. Make small batches. A jar that takes three weeks to use up is better than one that takes six months.

The same rule applies to a manufactured scrub, which is why a wooden spoon comes with our sets.

What you get by buying instead

Honestly: the same two ingredients. The difference is in what is hard to do at a kitchen counter — consistent crystal size in every jar, a fragrance dosed for skin rather than for a nose, and a product labelled with what is in it.

Our salt scrub is sea salt in sunflower and rapeseed oil with vitamin E, 400 g, and the ingredient list is printed in full on the jar. If you just want smooth heels on a Sunday, the recipe above is entirely enough.