This super gentle foaming clay scrub smells amazing, leaves your skin wonderfully soft. A base of gentle white kaolin clay (USA / Canada) is spiked with a touch of exfoliating oatmeal and a bright, fresh blend of essential oils to give you a fantastic lathery face scrub in no time flat. A quick blitz or two in your coffee grinder and you’re done—bam!
I’ve devised this recipe to get its foamy bit in one of two ways. Way #1 is blending some ground up soap into the powders, which works beautifully and is an especially great way to start making a dent in that bucket of desiccated soap scraps you have in your basement (that’s not just me, right?).
Way #2 is using a new ingredient (for me, at least): Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate is a safe, super gentle surfactant made from coconuts that’s sometimes sold as “Baby Foam” since it’s mild enough to use in baby products. I picked some up from Windy Point Soap Making Supplies (those guys are great, by the way—highly recommended if you’re in Canada!) and decided to play with it a bit. I get loads of recipe requests for things that lather that need a surfactant to do so, and since I found one that’s not super irritating or dodgy, I thought I’d dip my toe into the world of non-soap lather and see what happened.
0.5g SCI + 66g H2O
My first wee experiment with SCI was very simple: I put half a gram of it in a jar, adding 66mL of water (a totally random amount, but there you have it), capped the jar, and shook it vigorously for ten seconds. I was curious about how lathery it would be and the answer was VERY. Compared to soap, at least. It completely filled the jar with silky smooth lather—neat! The white powder didn’t dissolve completely, though—there was still a noticeable amount of sediment at the bottom of the jar when things settled down.
After ten seconds of shaking—wow!
SCI is a bit tricky to melt, but the gist of it is that you want to include a secondary surfactant to speed that up, and I didn’t want to faff with that at the moment—so I decided to make a powdered thing. A powdered face scrub thing. This is what I came up with!
The finished gentle foaming clay scrub is silky soft and works up to a low, gentle lather on the skin. The touch of oats adds a bit of exfoliation, and I find my skin feels satiny smooth and far less dried out than it would if I’d used a bar of soap to wash with. Neat! This is a pretty fun ingredient so far. If you don’t want to use it, though, or don’t have it, feel free to go the ground soap route!
This super cute jar is a vintage one I picked up at an antique shop, so barring the use of a time machine I can offer no guidance on where to purchase similar ones 😉
And can we just chat briefly about how amazing this scrub smells? Seriously. I’m smitten. Fresh, clean fir balsam mingles with bright, juicy lime and spicy cardamom for potentially the best smelling concoction I’ve made in a while. It’s brilliant first thing in the morning if you’re a bit groggy… and at all other times, really. YUM. Watch for this scent blend in other things!
Gentle Foaming Clay Scrub
2 tablespoons white kaolin clay (USA / Canada)
1 teaspoon oatmeal
1/4 teaspoon Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate (SCI) (USA / Canada) or 2 teaspoons finely ground soap (see note below for a how-to)20 drops jojoba oil (USA / Canada)
10 drops fir essential oil
5 drops cardamom essential oil
5 drops lime essential oilStart by putting on your dust mask since we’ll be working with fine powders and whirring them around in our DIY coffee grinder—you don’t want to inhale fine powders, it’s bad for your lungs.
Start by combining the clay, oatmeal, and SCI (or soap) in your coffee grinder and blending them together for thirty seconds. I highly recommend wearing a dust mask to prevent inhaling the fine powder, as that’s bad for you. Leave the lid on the grinder for at least three minutes to let the dust settle when you’re done grinding, rapping the top and sides of the lid sharply with the back of a spoon to knock the powder down (it has a tendency to climb up the sides of the lid and then fall out when you take the lid off).
Give the powder a bit of a stir with a small spoon to make sure everything has incorporated well and then scatter the drops of jojoba and essential oils over the powder, giving it a gentle stir to cover the drops with some dry powder (this helps them blend in rather than flying up to the top of the lid and sticking there). Blend everything together for another thirty seconds, doing the three minute wait + spoon bashing bit again.
That’s it! Spoon it into a wee jar and you’re done. The one I used is a cute vintage find from a local antique shop (which means no, I cannot tell you where to buy one haha).
To use, spoon about half a teaspoon of the scrub into your palm, combine it with a bit of warm water, and work it up between your hands before massaging it into your face and rinsing off.
I recommend using a spoon to scoop out the scrub so it stays dry, which will prolong the shelf life. Assuming you keep the scrub dry the only kind of spoilage we’re concerned about is the jojoba oil (USA / Canada) going rancid, and that should take at least a year. With such a small batch you should use it all up well before then 🙂
To make your own powdered soap simply place some scraps of dried up soap in your coffee grinder with a small spoonful of clay (this helps lubricate things/dry them out so the soap doesn’t fuse together into a blob) and process until you no longer hear any big bits of soap bashing about—this will probably take a minute or two.
Makes about 3 tablespoons of scrub.
Yay!!! Thank you for this! I purchased this ingredient a few months ago, trying to craft recipes of my own; I never considered a dry face scrub.
This is brilliant!
Going to go down to my workshop and try it right now!! 😀
Woohoo! Let me know how it turns out 😀
I made this and a couple different variations of it, and they all turned out GREAT!!
I made some for my mum too, and she raved about it.
Thanks, Marie! 😀
Woohoo! Thanks so much for reading & DIYing with me 🙂
I’m so excited to try this! I never would have thought to try using SCI in its dry form. Once again, you amaze me. Squee!
Thanks! I’m sure enjoying it, I hope you will as well 😀
Excellent recipe! Sounds like exactly what I need some days when I’m a bit “flaky”! Haha! I can’t wait to try it! Am really regretting not getting the SCI in my last order from NDA now, so I guess it’s ground up soap bits for me. Thanks Marie!
Thanks, Belinda! I am so in love with this scrub right now, as are my girlfriends 🙂 I took it on a girl’s weekend and it was a hit!
This sounds great! Can’t wait to try it.
Thanks, Laura—enjoy!
Great recipe thanks so much for the recipe will definitely give it a try
Just wondering if I can use cocomide betaine instead as I’ve got that at home already
Thanks
Samantha
Hey Samantha! From everything my research has shown, the surfactant you have is liquid, and this is an entirely dry product, so it would not be a good idea. You’d end up making a weird clumpy paste :/
Wonder if ground up soapnut powder could be used instead? I have a huge bag of them and have been using them for cleaning around the house and even destroyed an ant bed by sprinkling the powder all over it. Funny but the one thing most ppl use the soapnuts for (laundry) I haven’t done yet! Lol
Hmm… probably? I still haven’t worked with soapnuts so I can’t really say, but I’d be interested to hear how it goes if you try it!
I love this! Do you happen to have a recipe for a cleansing oil that starts out like an oil, massage on your face and then when you add water to it, it emulsifies. Once rinsed you skin feels soft and clean. An example of this is the expensive cleansing oil from Shu Uemura. Would love to find a DYI version and you would be the lady to get it done! Do you happen to have a recipe?
Hello Caryn
I actually mix 90ml olive oil, 10ml tween 80 (polysorbate 80) and add 5-8 drops essential oils (my favourite is lavender) in a 100ml bottle
This makeup remover recipe has been my favourite in the past year
Hope this helps
Thanks, Samantha!
Hey Caryn! I don’t at this time, but the folks over at r/diybeauty seem to love cleansing oils; most of the recipes that pop up are ~90% oils, with the rest made up by polysorbate 80 and Cromollient. You could poke around there for some ideas 🙂
Great, thanks so much!
I have made this recipe twice this week, the first time for myself and the second to give to a friend. I LOVE it. This recipe is a winner! I think I will try experiment and tweak it a little to make it slightly less drying. My skin gets quite dry using clay, so I am going to fiddle and see how much more jojoba I can add without affecting the bubbles (at least too much). I might even try adding some honey powder in it as I have some of that kicking around and have no idea what to do with it. Thanks for sharing!
Woohoo! I’m so thrilled 😀 The honey powder does sound like a fun addition, just be sure to keep the finished powder dry because honey powder loves to absorb water from the air and turn into a rock 😛 Happy making and thanks for reading!
This gave me a great idea for how to make/mix and package a mask/spot treatment mix of clays and essential oils. I would not have thought about adding the drops to the powder in a grinder to create that even mix. Here comes the gift ideas….
Yeah, blitzing wee bits of oils into powders is SUPER useful for more travel-able masks and the like 😀 I also do this a lot with powdered cosmetics, it’s an awesome trick!
I love this! I made it with homemade all-olive oil soap, since I had it, and it’s mild but thorough. I can put the powder directly onto my vibrating face brush and it deep cleans nicely, and smells good.
I do think I dried out my face a little by using it a bit too often, so I’m cautious not to use it every day, and to make sure to moisturize afterwards.
Awesome! If you’re finding it a bit drying you can try cutting it with a bit of arrowroot starch or using less soap 🙂 Happy DIYing!
Hey Marie,
This sounds awesome. If i was going to add pineapple powder to this, how much would you suggest?
Probably around 1/4 teaspoon and see what you think—add more if you want 🙂
I made this and have used it twice, so far. But I had to use SLSa because nowhere that I shop, sells the SCI. But it’s good.
I love how it cleans and how my skin feels after washing. I normally use soap these days, your all in one recipe. (Great soap btw). And I LOVE this scent.
I’m going to use it the rest of the week before letting my son try it though, since his skin reacts badly to products with hard to pronounce words.
I know, these two surfactants you’ve been using are gentle. I’ve done my homework and concluded that they’re worth a go. I was leery, Marie. I’m not afraid of hard to pronounce words but I have become a natural ingredient snob since making my own things.
So my son and his touchy skin and my husband with his twice yearly pre cancer skin searings has made me more aware of what goes on our skin. Since innocent castor oil has a higher rating than these hard to pronounce ingredients, what’s to prevent using them?
I’ll let you know next week how Son’s skin reacted.
I’m glad you’re enjoying it, Cristie! I look forward to hearing what your son’s skin thinks 🙂 And I 100% understand the natural ingredient snobbery! I sometimes think my friends are afraid to tell me about the shop bought skin care lest I read the ingredients list and make a funny face 😛
Do you happen to have a receipt for a powdered cleanser that doesn’t have the exfoliation? Would you use this recipe and just take the oatmeal out??? I don’t want it too drying, since I have dry skin. Or would you add a few more drops of oil to help with that. Let me know your thoughts. Appreciate you so much!
Hey Caryn! Honestly, powdered cleansers, by their very nature, are going to be exfoliating to some degree. If you want something smooth, check out this recipe 🙂 That one will also be less drying thanks to its completely different composition.
What do you think about Soapwort root powder in this recipe?
It’s definitely worth playing with, though I’ve never worked with it so I can’t offer any advice. Let me know if you give it a try 🙂
I recently made this and I love it. I left out the essential oils because I didn’t have any of these in my stash. But I love this gentle cleanser just the same. I had some left over shaving soap from a class I took and thought what a perfect fit, soft melty soap will be perfect! And it is 🙂 This leaves my face clean, soft and not tight, just perfect! Thank you for sharing this.
Beautiful! You may also be interested in this read regarding using soap and other high pH cleansers on your face 🙂
Hi Marie, I really enjoy reading, seeing and making your recipes.
Does this recipe require any preservatives? Or because it is dry it doesn’t? And how long does it last?
Thanks, Sarit
No water, no preservatives—just be sure to keep it dry. http://www.humblebeeandme.com/faqs/long-will-______-last-shelf-life/ (The FAQ is awesome!)