Who doesn’t love the smell of warm gingerbread cookies baking in the oven?? Well now you can have the same comforting aroma in this gingerbread body scrub. It’s versatile, great for skin, and smells amazing!
Tip: A homemade scrub makes for a thoughtful DIY Christmas gift! These can be packaged in cute jars with a ribbon or tag attached that includes the ingredients or a note. A large jar of sugar scrub is fairly inexpensive to make and a smaller jar makes a great stocking stuffer.
Exfoliate With a Gingerbread Body Scrub
We lose a shocking 30,000-40,000 skin cells every hour, or about a million a day. Using a sugar scrub can help the process along for healthier skin.
The sugar helps exfoliate skin to reveal a healthy, smooth layer underneath. There are a lot of variations out there, but a basic sugar scrub recipe contains oil and sugar. This gingerbread body scrub not only nixes any questionable ingredients, but it contains skin food to bring on a healthy glow.
Superfood Molasses
Most gingerbread sugar scrubs rely on brown sugar to get their exfoliating texture and yummy scent. Brown sugar is basically refined sugar with some of the molasses added back in. This recipe though uses organic cane sugar and molasses separately.
If you’re in a hurry and don’t have any blackstrap molasses, then regular organic will also work.
Ginger: The Spice of Life
This recipe uses cinnamon and ginger along with molasses to get that iconic gingerbread scent. Both of these herbs are rubefacient, which is a fancy word that means they stimulate circulation to the skin. A 2018 article in the Journal of Traditional and Complementary Medicine, reports on cinnamon’s antioxidant power.
Researchers pointed out how aromatic spices, like cinnamon, are potent antioxidants. These antioxidants fight free radical damage as they warm the body.
More circulation means more life-giving nutrients delivered in the blood cells. Cinnamon and ginger may also have a protective effect against certain cancers, according to a 2016 article in Nutrition, Spices for Prevention and Treatment and Cancers.
Vegan
This recipe doesn’t have any animal ingredients in it so it’s already vegan. If you make it for someone who is strict though, then be sure to use vegan cane sugar. Some sugar is whitened with charred animal bones. Most organic cane sugars are vegan.
Tip for Making a Great DIY Sugar Scrub
Organic unrefined sugar is less harmful to ingest than highly processed sugar. However, many unrefined sugars are coarse and can be too harsh for some skin, especially on the face. Since we’re not eating it, this is one of the few times I’m ok with a more refined sugar.
You’ll want to find the finest grind organic cane sugar you can, like evaporated cane juice. Even then, I wouldn’t recommend using this gingerbread body scrub on the face. The cinnamon and ginger can be too irritating on more delicate skin.
Gingerbread Body Scrub
Equipment
Ingredients
- ½ cup organic cane sugar PLUS 2 TBSP organic cane sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp ginger
- 1 TBSP molasses
- 1 TBSP castile soap
- 2 TBSP coconut oil
- 2 TBSP olive oil (or avocado, sweet almond, or grapeseed)
Instructions
- Combine all of the ingredients together and stir to combine.
Notes
Other DIY Body Scrubs to Try
Not sold on the gingerbread body scrub idea or want to expand your scrub palette? Here are some more yummy sugar scrub ideas!
- Luxurious sugar scrub (many different flavor or scent options here)
- Chai sugar scrub
- Himalayan salt scrub with grapefruit and mint
- Cumin face scrub
- Sugar cookie lip scrub
- Vanilla latte sugar scrub
- Lavender oatmeal face scrub
For more natural DIY gift ideas, see this post.
Have you ever made body scrub from ingredients in your kitchen? What’s your favorite?
Hi Katie, I’ve been wondering about the usage of sugar in natural products like these scrubs and others with organic sugar cane alcohol. I avoid sugar for health reasons and was concerned that using these products would be problematic. I’m hoping that they are ok since you consider health in all that you do. I’d appreciate knowing your thoughts when you have a chance. Thank you so much 🙂
Since you’re not consuming it then it should be fine…