Homemade Face Scrubs For Glowing Skin - 12 Gentle Recipes (2024)

A homemade face scrub is the best way to get smoother, brighter, and clearer-looking skin for longer. It can also leave your skin feeling ultra-soft too, and who doesn’t want that? A good exfoliant can go a long way, and you’d be surprised how easy they can be to whip up.

With just a few simple ingredients, you can come up with a decent exfoliating face scrub recipe that will leave your skin feeling so much fresher. However, if you want to take it further, producing a scrub that’s more professional – the first recipe on this page is for you!

Introduction

This is one of many excellent DIY skincare recipes, it’s packed with skin softening and nourishing ingredients, including professional quality exfoliants.

It’s not difficult to make at all, but you might need to look beyond your pantry cupboard for this one.

Following this face scrub recipe, you will find 6 more pro recipes, but there’s a lot you can make from just stuff you have laying around the house.

So we’ve followed up our professional DIY face scrubs with recipes that include everyday ingredients (see 6 kitchen cupboard face scrubs below). You’ll probably already have everything you need for them!

What They Don’t Tell You

While making a DIY face scrub at home can be a lot of fun, there are some things that people won’t tell you on their blog.

Not everything in your pantry is good for exfoliating facial skin. It might seem simple to combine sugar, oil, and a fragrance – but many of these ingredients will actually damage the delicate skin of the face.

So we’re here to make sure that doesn’t happen to you. All of our homemade facial scrub recipes have been checked and double-checked to ensure they’re the best they can be for your face.

And for the guys out there, this recipe is so easily tailored to suit you. You can use whatever shade of mica (you can even omit it completely) or essential oil you like to make a fantastic face scrub that will keep you looking amazing all year round. Guys have facial skin too – we can all benefit from a good quality DIY face scrub.

Why Make Your Own DIY Face Scrubs?

• Exfoliating is your skin’s natural way to shed its dead skin cells. As your body makes new cells, they get pushed forward, eventually dislodging the old cells, which fall off.
• Moisturising this flaky dead skin is a bit pointless as it won’t be absorbed. So, by using a natural homemade face scrub for dry skin you can remove all of the dead skin to reveal fresh new skin which you can happily cleanse and moisturize each day (learn more about exfoliating the skin here at the American Academy of Dermatology).
• After using one of these you should notice a reduction in the size of your pores and your skin will also have a healthy glow!
• A DIY face scrub will allow you to create something using natural ingredients that are suitable for your skin type.
• By saving money on store-bought scrubs you can apply the scrub liberally knowing that it cost you next to nothing to make!

The Good Exfoliants For Your Face

• Exfoliating the skin may seem easy. Just throw something coarse on the skin and rub away. But it’s not that simple. Some things are much better at removing dead skin cells gently and without pain. The best natural exfoliators for your face include rapadura sugar (for a brown sugar face scrub), jojoba beads, baking soda, bamboo powder, finely ground walnut shells, and ground pumice stone.
• There are so many more exfoliants available, and more things are coming onto the market every year. It is likely you will find different types, but don’t forget to do your research. Never use a new ingredient without doing your research first.
• The amount of exfoliant we use in a product depends on the type used. Generally, more coarse exfoliants, such as jojoba beads and bamboo powder will be used in concentrations no higher than 6-10%.Others can be used more generously. It is best to check with the manufacturer guidelines – or start at 6% and increase until you reach the desired coarseness.

The Bad Exfoliants For Your Face

• Some things are much too coarse to be used on the face. Using an exfoliant that is too strong for facial skin can result in micro-tearing, which often leads to infection and inflammation.
• White granulated sugar scrubs, salt of any kind, coffee grounds or anything made of microplastics. These are not suitable for the face at all. All of these would be fine on the body, with the exception of micro-plastic beads which can damage our environment.
• While this may sound a little contradictory – regular white sugar does make a good scrub. But, only for the lips. The lips are a little different than the rest of the skin on our face, and they are very prone to flaking. So, feel free to use sugar in a DIY lip scrub.
• Also avoid any type of exfoliant that is not intended for the face. Some that I have mentioned as good exfoliants above can come in a coarser variety intended for the body. The skin on your face is much softer than on your body and can be more easily damaged.
• Clay can be a fantastic natural exfoliant. However, it is extremely difficult to preserve. Therefore if you wish to include it within a recipe, we recommend keeping the liquid part separate and mixing up enough for a single application each time you use it. Otherwise, you will need to make use of very strong preservatives that are found in those pre-mixed store-bought clay face masks.
• If you have severely sensitive skin or skin that is prone to acne, consider using an exfoliating mitten (designed for the face) and a little homemade body lotion instead. Sometimes, even the finest exfoliants can be problematic for these skin types.

OK Let’s Make A Basic Face Scrub

How To Use A Face Scrub

Face scrubs should be used around once or twice a week depending on your skin type. For instance, those with mature, sensitive or acne-prone skin should avoid exfoliating too often.

1. Place a small amount of face scrub onto the fingertips and apply it to the face. Use circular motions, to gently massage the scrub into the skin, being careful not to drag or pull at the skin as you go.
2. Spend a few seconds on each area of the skin, ensuring that the whole of your face has been covered.
3. Rise off with warm water, pat dry, and moisturize with a good quality DIY face serum and homemade face moisturizer.

FAQ/Troubleshooting

Does My Skin Type Matter When Making A Face Scrub?

Absolutely it does. The recipe you find in our recipe card above can be synergized for different skin types. For instance, the apricot kernel oil can be swapped for something that is more effective for your own unique skin. Whatever liquid oil that your skin adores will work just fine. Furthermore, the essential oil can be substituted too.

I would not recommend swapping any of the other ingredients unless you really know what you’re doing. Jojoba beads could be substituted, but it is likely it will change the consistency of the product. Some experimentation may be required.

Can I Substitute One Exfoliant For Another?

As previously said, you can swap the exfoliant, but it will definitely change the consistency of the product. If you want to avoid changing the product consistency, opt for a different exfoliant that is similar to jojoba beads – i.e. non-absorbent. A good example would be rapadura sugar or bamboo powder.

Colloidal oats, pumice stone, and baking soda (while all excellent exfoliants) will be too absorbent for this recipe and will likely make the product feel more like a coarse paste than a slick scrub.

If you want to exchange the exfoliant in this recipe, it is likely that you will need to do some experimentation.

Why Can’t I Use Salt In My Face Scrubs?

Salt is very abrasive. Because of its crystalline structure, it has very sharp edges that are not always easily visible. Even finely ground salt is exceptionally abrasive against the skin – unacceptably so.

While salt may be okay on the body, especially if you have tougher, rougher skin that really needs it. But absolutely nobody will need salt to exfoliate their face. If you see a homemade face scrub with any amount of salt in it – avoid it like the plague.

When salt, or another exfoliant that is too coarse for facial skin, is used as an exfoliant it can cause microscopic tears in the skin. You won’t always see these, because of how small they are.

I Made The Fruity Face Scrub, And It’s Too Thin/Thick – What Do I Do?

A variety of different factors can influence the consistency of an end product. The main issue we have as home formulators is the climate and weather. We make and test all of our products in the northern hemisphere, with standardized temperatures in our homes. However, this is not the case for everyone. Someone living in a very hot climate may find their homemade face scrub is much looser.

Therefore, if you find that your DIY face scrub is too thin, simply up the amount of cetyl alcohol. Up it by 2-3% first and go from there, increasing until it’s a more reasonable consistency. Conversely, the opposite is also possible. If you live in a very cold environment you may want to make them a little looser.

6 More DIY Face Scrub Recipes

• Brown Sugar Face Scrub Recipe
• Green Tea Face Scrub Recipe
• Charcoal Face Scrub Recipe For Soft Smooth Skin
• Turmeric Face Scrub Recipe For Glowing Skin
• DIY Lip Scrub For Perfect Looking Lips

6 Kitchen Cupboard Face Scrub Recipes

If you are short on time here are some quick simple homemade face scrubs that you can mix up in an instant!

Final Thoughts

I hope you enjoy this post as much as we enjoyed making it. Whipping up a homemade face scrub is a lot of fun, and the end product is simply fantastic!

As long as you follow our advice on what to use, and what not to use, you should be totally safe. If you do experience some irritation or inflammation after using one of these face scrub recipes, consider lowering the amount of exfoliant for next time. Don’t forget – those with the most sensitive skin shouldn’t be exfoliated too often.

Let us know what you thought about these recipes in the comments below – we love to hear about your crafting adventures!