Last year, the first thing I ever made with Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate (SCI) was a Gentle Foaming Clay Scrub that I really, really liked—I polished it off in a matter of weeks! For some reason or another I got to thinking about it again, and then I got to missing it, but I’m not one to re-make something if I think I can re-vamp it, so here we are! This Coconut Clay Facial Cleanser adds SCI to a base of clay, with added fragrant coconut milk powder for a rich, creamy feel and some marshmallow root for slip and some emolliency. Add a touch of water to work this creamy powder up to a rich, velvety lather. Oooooh, bubbles.
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The bulk of the clay is simply white kaolin clay. While you could definitely use a different light, silky clay, like French green, French red, or zeolite (not bentonite!), I find I’m partial to white clay for one simple reason: I am not a fan of cleaning my sink directly after cleaning my face. Red clay is especially bad for making your bathroom sink and counter look like a murder scene, and while I love the look of a red clay scrub, I do not love how it stains everything the same colour as the Australian outback. If you have a darker sink you may be able to get away with it, but my bathrooms are all shiny white porcelain. Paler clays like beige or zeolite would be my next choice after white kaolin, but this is all based on my general dislike of wiping down my bathroom sink multiple times a day. If that’s not a thing that bothers you, feel free to embrace the clay rainbow!
The foamy fun for this cleanser comes from the inclusion of Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate (SCI)—sometimes sold as BabyFoam. I chose this surfactant for a couple reasons, the first being that it is powdered. This whole concoction is powdery, so using a liquid surfactant obviously won’t work! Made from fatty acids derived from coconut, it’s gentle and utterly lovely, with a low velvety lather (that’s reason #2). Reason #3 is the pH, which is around 5.5. Other powdered/solid surfactants I’ve got like Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate (SLSa) and Sodium Coco Sulfate (SCS) have much higher pH’s (~6 and 8, respectively). While you can adjust the pH, it’s a trickier thing to do with a powdered concoction, meaning it’s easier to use a surfactant that already has our desired pH than faff around with adjusting another one.
Thanks to the powdery nature of this cleanser it’s really easy to make—just put it all in a coffee grinder and whizz until uniform. Do make sure you’re wearing your dust mask while working with the loose SCI and whirring things around; inhaling powdered surfactants is a downright awful experience, and inhaling large amounts of aerosolized fine powders isn’t good for you in the long term. A decent dust mask is pretty inexpensive, and very worth the investment!
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Coconut Clay Facial Cleanser
1g | 0.3oz dried marshmallow root
7g | 0.25oz Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate (SCI) (USA / Canada)
6g | 0.21oz powdered coconut milk (USA / Canada)
18g | 0.63oz white kaolin clay (USA / Canada)Put on your dust mask.
Weigh the marshmallow root, SCI, and coconut powder into your DIY-only coffee grinder. Weigh the kaolin clay into a medium sized bowl, and add as much of the clay as you can to the grinder while still having room for everything to grind up nicely, and reserve the rest.
Blend the mixture together thoroughly, until you can’t hear large bits of marshmallow root rattling around anymore—about one minute, but it may be more depending on your grinder. Leave the grinder to allow the dust to settle for at least ten minutes to settle before popping the lid off. Tap the mixture into the bowl with the remaining kaolin clay and gently stir to combine. Once you’re done stirring, you can remove your dust mask—at this point you’re done any vigorous mixing and the fat from the coconut milk powder is weighing the entire mixture down.
Lightly spoon the mixture into a jar or wide-mouthed bottle; I used a 100mL (3.3 fl oz) jar from Voyageur, so I’d recommend choosing something around that size.
To use, sprinkle a small amount of the powder into a damp palm (taking care not to get any water into the scrub! No damp finger dipping!), and work it up into a light lather with a bit of water before massaging it into your skin and rinsing clean. Enjoy! I recommend using this cleanser as a few-times-a-week thing, rather than a daily cleanser, as most faces don’t need daily physical exfoliation.
Shelf Life & Storage
Because this scrub does not contain any water, it does not require a broad-spectrum preservative (broad spectrum preservatives ward off microbial growth, and microbes require water to live—no water, no microbes!). Be sure to keep it dry to ensure it lasts as long as possible—don’t let any water get into the container and it should easily last a year.
Substitutions
- You can replace the marshmallow root with a different dried herb that your face loves, or simply replace it with more clay
- I don’t recommend replacing the SCI with ground soap or a different surfactant for pH reasons
- You can use a different powdered milk if you don’t have powdered coconut milk
- You can use a different lightweight, smooth clay if you don’t have white kaolin, but keep in mind that pigmented clays make for much bigger messes in your bathroom
I love how lazy we are. We’ll spend our last waking thoughts about formulating a new product, different ways to use a product. I don’t know about you, but sometimes, I’ll wake up early just to make it, then go back to bed for a bit.
But dear lord. Why the heck would I wash my face in the sink? Water gets everywhere! So I jump through the shower because the shower is easier to clean.
Embrace the clay rainbow! You’re hilarious! Back to normal work schedule next week. Guess what’s on my list?
I’ve never done the get up early and go back to bed thing haha—Lottie would not stand for that! You’re up!? GOODIE! ME TOO! 😛
I cannot be arsed to take two showers a day lol, and I don’t think my skin would like that much, either! So dry, erk 😛
My version of go back to bed is, hey! Look at the time! It is before 3am. That is an unreasonable time to be up and about. YAY! Get to finish that book!
I’d love to have your dry skin! I could wear lotions and body butters all the time! We’ve had wicked dry weather these past few days and I’m lathering on the lotion because I know it won’t slide off.
Do you ever need sleep, lady?! I’m feeling pretty good today after a nice ten hours lol.
I was born with a defective sleep gene. Ohhh you should see the lip colours I made today. Not quite right, but close… oh so close. Going for a round two tomorrow. Or is it technically round three since I made one batch and split it into two? Hum. conundrum!
Sleepovers at your house sound like a ton of fun!
This sounds brilliant! It’s going on my list of recipes to try.
Thanks, Jennifer! Happy making 🙂
I make something mildly similar to this with baking soda, colloidal oats, goats milk powder, and kaolin clay; works great for dry acne.
This seems like it would be great for sensitive skin. I’ll have to add this to my to-do list for when my skin is hyper-sensitive. Great recipe.
Neat! I would encourage you to read this on using baking soda on the skin; research shows it’s really not at all something you should put on your face, and will actually exacerbate acne by creating an environment in which the bacteria that causes acne really thrives :/
Just to clarify…
I already knew about the use of high ph cleansers in relation the skin mantle and skin care when I first tried this a few years ago. I have genetic acne , so there’s no aging out of my acne. I’ve used many prescription and drugstore options such as benzoyl peroxide, Neutrogena, Noxzema with temporary relief that only lasted a matter of days out of a month when used regularly.
I only started using natural options around 2009. My thought process was all the usual things didn’t work, so I would try options that were better suited to dark skin, acne and sensitive skin. Hence, I bought my first bar of Dudu-Osun black soap because it was based in Nigeria. I figured if it worked for people back home it might work for me. I also bought Thayer’s alcohol-free rose witch hazel toner and Kiss My Face AHA Peaches & Cream moisturizer (which was discontinued unfortunately). I’ve tried other cleansers, toners, moisturizers and more. The only things that have worked consistently are Dudu-Osun black soap, Thayer’s alcohol-free toners in rose and lavender, grapeseed oil (alone and as a base for oil blends/infused oils), herbal steams, and masks/treatments with a bentonite clay base including things like aloe, honey, yogurt, milk, teas/tisanes, oil in different combinations with ACV or just water and ACV.
With what you’ve researched on basic cleansers like soap and baking soda, you probably came across the same information I did. It didn’t explain why black soap worked for me for years. I think it might have been Thayer’s toner since it contained citric acid and ascorbic acid, but I’m not a chemist. I just made sure to use alcohol-free toners since I was using a drying cleanser, so I did the same when I used the baking soda. Actually, the first time I used it (heavily diluted) was in a mask with oats and yogurt that I left on my skin for 30 sec no more than a minute – I timed myself just to make sure.
Like any other ingredient I’ve used to DIY, I always do research before I make anything. Some people used a paste of water and baking soda alone – wouldn’t recommend that, some people left it on their skin too long even though it started to burn and other things. Months after first using baking soda without any problems, I had financial problems in which I couldn’t afford to replace my preferred skin staples (DIY or store-bought) and a small box of baking soda was $0.50 at the dollar store. I was having a breakout which led me to make that cleansing powder, so to speak, with kaolin clay, powdered oats, goats milk powder and backing soda using what I had left in my stash. I already knew to heavily dilute the baking soda to avoid any problems and only use gentle options in the rest of my routine; also, I figured the high ph, anti-microbial, and anti-bacterial properties might help. Plus, conventional cleansers have never worked for me; those that did never lasted longer than a week – two if I was lucky. I figured it couldn’t hurt to try. It cleared my skin completely in 2 to 3 days. After that, I was able to return to my usual routine. Although, I had to use regular African Black Soap which didn’t work as well unless it was part of a liquid black soap recipe with essential oils for acne-prone skin.
I’ve only found one conventional cleanser in the past year that might work as a back up called Destiny Boutique Charcoal Facial Detox. This also didn’t work as well initially with just my regular routine, but it didn’t break me out either. I had to compensate by exfoliating twice a week instead of once which helped a bit, but increasing my bentonite clay mask (currently: bentonite, kaolin, oats, acv, water) use to twice a week in the past few weeks has made my regimen as a whole work to achieve mostly clear skin. I still have a few barely there pimples sometimes.
With all that in mind, I continue to research and ask myself why conventional options especially cleansers almost never work for me in the long term and why I’ve only really had success with high ph cleansers? Anyways, sorry about writing a veritable novel on my skin issues while only addressing about 40% of my skin makeup (your FAQ said it takes a month or 2 to respond to emails). You’d think my response could be summarized, maybe; my propensity for essays is why I usually avoid the comment section on any website and just record this stuff in a notebook. Once again, my bad.
How interesting! I love how much care, research, and attention you have put into your skin care to really find out what works for you, and I’m really intrigued by what you’ve found. Black soap always made my face happier for a week or two, and then it would get so much worse, so it definitely isn’t for me, sadly. The amazing int ital results kept me coming back for ages, but I couldn’t handle the backsliding anymore. Everybody’s skin, microbiome, and body chemistry is different, so it’s not surprising different things work for different people—thank heavens there are so many different products on the market so we have options. A study I read mentioned that dark skinned people have much more acidic skin than light skinned people, for instance (pH 4.6 ± 0.03 vs. 5.0 ± 0.04) (source), and skin pH also fluctuates with age, so there probably is something to people of different skin tones and different ages having different skin care needs, let alone more personal variables. It’s all very interesting and very personal!
And definitely no worries on long comments 🙂 I am always happy to participate in interesting and educational discussions! Thanks for teaching me something today 🙂
Can I substitute with marshmallow root powder since I have that in stock?
Yup, just use half as much!
Great recipe! I have two clay/herb scrubs that i use consistently and I am vary happy with the formulations. One has regular powdered whole milk with chamomile and oats and the other has hibiscus and powdered goat milk, which, by the way, doesn’t have a smell. At least, i can’t detect one. 🙂
One quick questions about the mask you use – where can a person get one of those? What is it called? I can search the hardware stores or on line if i know the name. I use the usual paper mask when blending but it doesn’t seem efficient. I’ve seen you show yours before you put it on in a couple of videos. I have a hard time keeping the paper mask on my face and in place. Consequently, dusty particles manage to slip in the sides and top (cough, cough). I must not be doing something right. Your mask look like it would hold the paper one on your face without too much difficulty and I would like to find one. Thanks!
The mask (well, one like it) is linked in the post 🙂 It doesn’t use the paper masks at all—it has different filters that you can replace!
Question about ph and forgive any ignorance on my part but I’m not great at chemistry. So it sounds like the SCI has the proper ph is that correct? What ph are the clays when wet? Are they the proper ph as well? I like the idea of creating something properly ph balanced as my skin is fussy and acne prone no matter what products I use, how much water I drink, what I eat etc. I have made this recipe and used it twice now and like how it makes my skin feel so I’m thinking the proper ph might have something to do with it and would like to make more things with this ph.
Do you know the ph of your cleanisng oils? I’ve tried some of those and my skin seems to like the mint julep one the best, apparently rice bran oil agrees with me. If you’re able to give a bit more guidance on creating proper ph solutions that would be great. I’d guess the easiest way is obviously starting with ingredients that are the desired ph but what if they aren’t, what does one do then? Again I hope you can forgive my ignorance as science is not my forte.
Also a quick question about kaolin clay. I’ve seen some that is very, very white, like what you’d expect if you ground up a piece of chalk. But some that I have ordered from a reputable source is more of a beige tint. Same thing with what I got at the local herb store. No big deal with this recipe but I am wondering about how to find or get very white clay because I plan on making somethings from your book and I’d imagine it changes things if you use a pure white clay versus one with a beige darker tint.
Hey! If you want to check the pH of clays, check data sheets from suppliers. Reddit’s DIYBeauty sub also has a good basic guide.
I don’t know the pH of my cleansing oils, and that would be a hard thing to state with much confidence because anhydrous products don’t have a pH. Once you mix water at the time of use then it would become a factor, but it would vary with the water used to wash the face and the quantity used. From everything I’ve seen and read, people aren’t typically concerned about the pH of oil cleansers.
Skin Chakra has a good series of posts on testing and adjusting pH here—I think you’ll find them helpful 🙂
Don’t worry too much about the colour of the clay; as long as is isn’t highly pigmented you won’t notice a difference between white, pale grey, or pale beige in finished cosmetics 🙂
This sounds and looks lovely thank you for sharing! I see you added the SCI at 20%, I’ve just been looking online for it to purchase and websites suggest between 3- 20%, can I ask did you trial and error with lower amounts of it? 3 – 20 is quite a big size range and I wonder whether the lower end of it would still be enough to generate a gentle foam? Thank you for your knowledge!
Hey! So; I find that range odd. SCI is approved for rinse-off applications at up to 50%, and 20% is less than half of that—nowhere close to the actual high end. I can’t imagine it would do much of anything at 3% beyond aiding rinse-off. I’d recommend reading this, as well—it’s a great resource on understanding how you’d choose different surfactants in different amounts. I didn’t do a blend here, but you can see how if you were doing a blend with different surfactants that would lead you to choose lower amounts of some as higher amounts of others are present. I did not do trial and error versions of this cleanser between 0 and 50%, but I have made other similar cleansers and experimented with it that way. At 84% active we’ve got 16.8% active surfactant matter in this cleanser, which would be a bit high for a liquid face wash, but given this is diluted with water before use I didn’t encounter any troubles with it (it’s quite a gentle surfactant). You could likely reduce it to ~15% if you want 🙂
Can you substitute marshmallow root powder for dried m.r.? I have not been able to find the dried, and it is in several recipes I want to try. Powder seems easier to come by.
Yup! I’d use 1/3 less (so 2/3 of what is called for) if it is measured in volume as the powder will pack more densely.
Hi Marie, Love how this clay cleanser come together so easy and yet so lovely and gentle. I made few substitutions since I do not have all the ingredients that listed in your recipe, I used lavender buds instead of marshmallow roots, regular skim milk powder instead of coconut milk powder. I also added few drops of Lavender Essential oil. After blasting in my mini blender/chopper upon opening the lid, the lavender fragrance is surprisingly delightful (even before the added E.O) and the consistency is very similar to what you have in the Youtub video. I’ve only used once so far and it leave my skin so smooth and clean lingering with light Lavender scent which I really love. Thanks again for this beautiful recipe and I would imaging it travels well without leaking. (compare to the liquid cleanser that I normally pack for traveling)
How wonderful! Thank you so much for sharing your modifications—they sound delightful 🙂 And thank you so much for DIYing with me! 😀
Does this work well for removing makeup?
It wouldn’t be my first choice; I’d tend to gravitate towards an oil cleanser that can be used daily.
Is there a reason you wouldn’t use bentonite clay in this recipe? I use bentonite clay often, in my soaps, face masks, scrubs, etc. I love the ionization of the particles.
Also, I have avoid using any thing but all natural ingriedents besides leucidal SF and optiphen plus. I am hesitant to use SCI but I have a family member asking for something similar.
Any advice or info is appreciated!
Click the “not bentonite!” link in the blog post to see why not—it behaves very different than kaolin and I want the kaolin behaviour, not the bentonite behaviour.
SCI is a really safe and really gentle surfactant made from coconut oil. I love it; it creates beautiful lather and works wonderfully for my skin. It has a much more skin-friendly pH than soap, too. I wouldn’t be without it! You can learn more about it here.
Happy making!
This is part of my regular skin routine – love it. I didn’t have any marshmallow root but had slippery elm powder and it worked beautifully. No harsh bits so not a scrub but a beautiful gentle cleaner. Made this up as well for friends.
I am so glad! Thanks so much for sharing and for DIYing wth me 🙂
Hi Marie
Sorry to post to an old project – I hope it isn’t a problem. I love the sound of this cleanser but my daughter has a dairy allergy and since I have never found a coconut milk powder that does not contain powdered cows milk, what would you suggest as a substitute. I have never found powdered soy milk in the shops or I would use that.
Kim
You could use more clay, or perhaps some colloidal oats? Powdered soy milk would also work—I’ve found it at health food stores 🙂 Happy making!
Hi sorry for late comment I heard about marshmallow roots are not to be used fr pregnant or lactating mommies is that true
That is a question for a medical doctor 🙂
I’ve just made your Gentle Foaming Clay Scrub and I’m really pleased with it. Now I’ve found this one I’ll have to try it too! I’m going to have a bathroom full of cleansers at this rate ! Maybe I’ll share a few with friends.
Thinking ahead to Christmas , I think this would make a lovely combo with the Powdered Bath Milk recipe you have. Could we add some essential oils to these if we wanted too?
Thank you for sharing your fab recipes. You so very creative !
Hi, does one clean the coffee grinder with alcohol before making a new batch of powder cleanser? Thanks
Please read this 🙂 Happy making!
Hello Marie,
can i use orange or lemon powder in this recipe?
Thanks