Today’s Green Tea Coconut Emulsified Sugar Scrub recipe is a request from Regina, who found a lovely (and pricey!) bright green body scrub that was spiked with matcha green tea and peppermint essential oil. I loved the idea of something green and fresh for spring—a scrub to buff away dry winter skin, leaving my super pale legs ready to welcome warmer days. A quick perusal of the ingredient list sparked a few ideas, and off I went!
If you read the marketing for the original, it’s easy to think it’s mostly made of matcha tea, but the ingredient list tells another story. The matcha is waaaay down the ingredient list, hanging out with the vitamin E, which is typically used at ~0.5%. Ah, typical natural body stuff marketing. The majority of the scrub was sugar and coconut oil, with some peach kernel oil and kaolin clay blended in as well—and that makes sense. Sugar is a great (and inexpensive) exfoliant, the oils help lubricate the sugar so you aren’t sand blasting yourself, and the clay adds some creaminess and a more subtle scrub. The green tea is the star marketing ingredient, and it does bring some antioxidants and pretty green-ness to the mix, but it’s not doing much heavy lifting here!
One of the first things I wanted to change about the scrub was to turn it into an emulsified scrub. The original was all oils and scrubbiness, meaning rinse-off wouldn’t be that great, and if you used the scrub in the tub, you’d end up with some wicked oil slicks. It’s so easy to make a scrub an emulsified one, too (basically just add emulsifying wax), so I really couldn’t resist. The result is a scrub that turns into an exfoliating lotion when used on damp skin, as the scrub emulsifies with the water you’re bathing in. When it comes time to rinse off, the scrub comes off beautifully, leaving your skin soft and hydrated, but not oily. Bazinga!
I didn’t have matcha (I’m more of an English Breakfast kind of lady), so I used green tea extract instead; feel free to use whichever you have on hand! Because green tea extract is a sort of sad ruddy brown colour, I also included a bit of green mica to give the final product a stronger green hue—I also could’ve used French green clay instead of white kaolin, or added something like spirulina. Since this scrub doesn’t contain any water, and we want it to be scrubby, this is a great place to use up any water soluble plant colourants like spirulina or wheat grass that you might have kicking around. They won’t rapidly oxidize and go murky brown without water in the mix (just don’t store the scrub in direct sunlight), and the fact that they’ll be gritty in an oil base is a-ok. You can also just leave the scrub as is—the colour is purely cosmetic!
Once you’ve melted the base oils and emulsifying wax, everything comes together a bit like cookie dough—just use your electric beaters to blend everything together. I didn’t design this scrub to have enough structure to maintain much of a whipped consistency, so I wasn’t really aiming for a whipped sugar scrub—I just find that whipping in the heavier ingredients like the sugar is the easiest way to evenly incorporate them. If you melt everything together you’re left stirring the mixture while it cools to keep the powders in suspension, and that’s a pain in the backside. Beating everything together is much faster and easier!
If you like a bit of tingly freshness, you’ll love the essential oil blend. It’s a simple combination of peppermint, lemongrass, and eucalyptus that is downright lovely. Feel free to double the amounts I used for more of a minty tingle!
The final scrub is a lightweight, creamy scrub that’s all kind of awesome. I melted the base ingredients together one evening, left them to cool overnight, and then whipped in the rest of the ingredients the following morning. It was so fast and easy, and doesn’t cost anywhere close to the $40+ scrub that inspired it! Let’s go make some Green Tea Coconut Emulsified Sugar Scrub 🙂
Green Tea Coconut Emulsified Sugar Scrub
20g | 0.71oz complete emulsifying wax (not beeswax!)
20g | 0.71oz virgin coconut oil
8g | 0.28oz stearic acid (USA / Canada / UK)
40g | 1.41oz safflower oil
4 drops Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)50g | 1.76oz white sugar (USA / Canada)
10g | 0.35oz white white kaolin clay (USA / Canada) or French green clay
2g | 0.07oz powdered green tea extract or matcha green tea powder10 drops peppermint essential oil
7 drops lemongrass essential oil
5 drops eucalyptus essential oil~6/8 tsp green mica (optional—see preamble for alternatives)
Prepare a water bath by bringing about 3cm/1″ of water to a bare simmer over low to medium-low heat in a small saucepan.
Weigh the emulsifying wax, coconut oil, stearic acid, safflower oil, and vitamin E into a small, deep mixing bowl that is heat resistant—glass, metal, or ceramic are good choices. Place the mixing bowl in your prepared water bath to melt everything through.
Once everything has melted, remove the mixing bowl from the heat and dry the outside of it off with a dish towel. Leave it to solidify; I left mine overnight.
When the base has solidified, weigh in the sugar, clay, green tea, and essential oils. Use electric beaters or a stand mixture to beat the mixture until it is light and fluffy, like when you’re creaming butter and sugar together at the start of a cookie recipe.
If you want to adjust the colour, now’s the time to beat in your mica or whatever other green colourant you might be using. Start slow and work up to a colour you like!
Lightly spoon the whipped scrub into a 250mL/8oz tin. To use, portion out a small amount of scrub into a shower-safe container, and take that container into the shower or bath with you. Massage small amounts of the scrub into damp skin and rinse off. Enjoy your lovely soft, exfoliated skin!
I used an 250mL/8oz paperboard container from YellowBee to store my scrub in. So far I’ve been really impressed with their paperboard containers! The tube I put the Puppy-sporin I made back in February in still looks great—there’s been no seeping/soaking that I’ve had happen with paperboard containers from other suppliers. These containers obviously aren’t the sort of thing you should take into the shower, so that’s just one more reason to remember to scoop out a small amount of the scrub into a shower-safe container before use.
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. I highly recommend portioning out the amount you want to use into a small shower-safe container for use so you are never taking the master batch into the bath/shower, where it is very likely to become contaminated with water as you’ll be dipping into it with wet hands. If you plan on giving this scrub away, please include 1% phenonip (USA | Canada)—phenonip is an oil-soluble broad spectrum preservative, so it will work to protect this 100% oil-based concoction.
Hi Marie,
What is the purpose of stearic acid in this formula of you already added an emulsifying wax? I appreciate your response.
Stearic acid offers thickening so this isn’t a goopy slop and the sugar doesn’t settle out. Stearic acid is not an emulsifier, so the inclusion of e-wax is roughly as relevant to the use of stearic acid as the inclusion of the sugar 🙂
Could I use beeswax or soy wax to thicken it? I am out of stearic acid.
Thx
I really wouldn’t recommend it—wax in scrubs like this is awful and sticky and waxy and just YUCK. If you read through the comments another reader thickened it successfully with xanthan gum and shared how!
Do you even need an emulsifier? As far as I can see this isn’t an emulsion at all, so any thickener would do. Also, if it was an emulsion, surely the sugar would dissolve?
I think you missed paragraph 3—that clearly explains that this is indeed an emulsion at the time of use 🙂
This sounds heavenly, thanks so much for the idea of using tea in a scrub! A while ago, I experimented with some Matcha bath bombs and the aroma that they gave off in the bath was so relaxing and such a unique experience from your everyday bath. It was like a spa treatment mixed with a tea ceremony. A scrub will be more lasting and a bit less messy in the tub!
Oooh, how lovely! I will have to keep an eye out for matcha at the bulk shop so I can grab a few teaspoons to play with in my DIYs 🙂 I love the idea of tea bath bombs, too!
Confession: I franticly Google for the original product after I read Marie’s recipe and mentally smack talk it. “Oh, you are SO not getting my $32. I am going to make you all by myself, suckers!”
Hahahahahahahah. I’m not even sure you’re looking at the “right” on since the one I was referring to was over $40 Either way, none of those people are getting out $! 😛
Could this be used on my face?
Unless the skin on your face is realllllly tough this will be far too exfoliating/rough to use on delicate facial skin!
Hi Marie I made this last night and without reading the comments I’ve used it on my face twice and quite like it – I used soft brown sugar. Do you think it’s ok. And if not what should I use to make it into facial scrub (I find soft brown sugar and kaolin clay a bit too small for the body- I mean it’s not exfoliating enough for the body).
Look forward to your reply
Sugar is pretty darn abrasive to use on the face, so I would probably stop. If you want a facial scrub, you’ll want a different recipe, like this one 🙂 Perhaps try adding some larger grain sugar or salt to this scrub to make it scrubby enough for your body!
Hi Marie! Not exactly related with this formula but I made a deodorant with matcha powder like 2 months ago and it was perfectly green and gorg…then it turned white 🙁 Do you know by chance why?
That sounds like some sort of chemical reaction; something similar happened with my Mango Mango Shampoo Bars years ago. The white one was coloured with sea buckthorn oil and as you can see, it didn’t last long!
Coul you use Olivem 1000 instead of e wax? If so what %?
I would also like to know if I can use olieM1000 and at what percent you’d recommend.
That should work; same % 🙂
Marie, I can not keep up with you! Haha, when do you manage to use all the stuff you make? My bathroom (and fridge) are overflowing already… will just be drooling over this EO blend till Easter!
Once I learned from you how easy it is to make all those expensive cleansers, my last purchased leftovers is sitting on “the bench” forgotten as I play with self-made goodies.
Anyway. A little story. Flying back from Budapest this week. A cosmetics sales person approaches me with a question: “what cosmetics brand do you use”…. I said I make it myself, and the response was highly amusing – I guess this is still not a typical answer. The lady then proceeded selling me some premium cream with first ingredient being silicone, as an Organic product. Well, thank goodness for the beauty brains:), rebuking those claims has become very easy :).
Last thing: adding lemon myrtle into your cold snap cleansing balm made yet another super- addictive cleanser! Sweet!
I must confess I don’t. It’s kind of awful :/ I give a lot of it away, but loads of it sits in my fridge awaiting… nothing. It will never get used, not by me at least. Sigh. ‘Tis a hazard of the hobby (and most the blog), I guess.
Your story about the cosmetics lady totally resonates with me! Whenever people at shops try to interest me in their soaps or whatever I think they often regret it LOL.
I’ll have to try adding some lemon myrtle to the cold snap! Yum!
But have you thought about selling the samples in your shop? I bet newbies like I was (err 3 months ago) would love to try things out before they invest in this hobby and you could at least win fridge space and get more fans 🙂
I’d encourage you to go read up on all the Health Canada requirements for selling things—samples or not. I suspect you will conclude it is not worth the effort, as I have!
This is pretty funny! I am the same as well. I got into an in-depth conversation in Lush about the ingredients in their shampoo bars which lists the first ingredient as SLS. I was asking if they had thought of using other surfactants in their bars and was given a rather blank stare.
Ha! I imagine the salespeople at LUSH don’t know a whole lot about what is actually going on in the products they sell—just that they smell pretty and are supposedly natural/fresh/etc. I would love to ask about how on earth they are including “fresh” fruit in things if I thought I’d get a decent answer lol.
Thank you
Marie, this is a perfect post for me because I’ve been searching for emulsified scrub for the past few days! 🙂 I was also thinking to make some face masks and wondering if preservative is needed when I mix clay and oil together. In this post you mentioned that no preservative is required since there’s no water in this recipe, then does that mean I wouldn’t need any preservative for clay and oil based fask masks as long as I don’t add water in them?
If it’s just clay and oils you won’t need a preservative as there is no water 🙂
I was just wondering about this as I was pondering putting a tiny amount of colloidal oats in my scrub the other day. Which I assume would be akin to using tea powder. I was worried that once someone introduced water into the container that it may grow bacteria even with the optiphen I used. Do you think it’s safe if there’s a very small amount in there? Great recipe.
Thank you SO much for this recipe! I had previously made a green tea scrub and loved the effect and smell, but hated the gigantic oil spill on my shower floor afterwards so I was always reluctant to give it away as gifts. I made a batch of this on Friday. Used some Friday night. And whipped up another batch on Saturday. It’s amazing. Thanks for sharing!
YAY! I’m so thrilled 😀 You may have set a Humblebee record for making, using up, and re-making a recipe! Enjoy your no-longer-potentially-fatal scrub! 😀
I NEEDED this so I made some even though I didn’t have the stearic acid. It’s so good! Skin felt smooooooth and soft! I got my thickening by dispersing 1.6 g xanthan gum in 4.8 g glycerin, whisked the two for a few minutes, then added that to the rest. I whisked the whole mixture off and on for a few more minutes as it was starting to solidify. Then finished as written. Now to add stearic acid to the short list, which in reality is not short AT ALL. Thank you Marie.
Very cool! I love your workaround 🙂 Did it get… boogery… at all? I find lots of xanthan gum can do that, which is always a bit odd in the texture department LOL. Enjoy and thanks for DIYing with me!
lol, no boog texture. It’s just thick and creamy. No tack. What I used didn’t amount to much.
Yay for no boog! 😛
Hi Marie! First off, you are amazing and your recipes are incredible. My question is, I noticed that in this emulsified scrub recipe, you have the base sit until it’s solidified before mixing in your sugar. In your Lemon Poppy seed scrub, you mix it in almost immediately. Is there a reason that you chose to let the base solidify first in this recipe? Thanks a bunch!
Er, nothing I can think of haha. You can definitely do it either way!
Ha ha ha, ok. I just wanted to be sure that either way worked well for you 🙂 Thanks a bunch, you rock!
Happy scrubbing! 🙂
I got an exfoliants sample pack that has jojoba beads, grape powder, loofah, strawberry seeds and a few others… could I potentially use something like the sm jojoba beads on this recipe to be suitable for the face? I also thought of adding some beads to the creamy meadowfoam mango cleanser (or any of my cleansing lotions.) I figure jojoba beads are light enough to stay suspended in the cleanser…
any thoughts?
Definitely! I’d probably scale the batch down, though, since those exfoliants are a lot more expensive than sugar, and this much scrub for your face would last yeeeeeears 😛
Hi Marie! This recipe looks lovely. Do you think this would do well in a pump bottle. I’m concerned about sugar settling and have found that it’s quite difficult to master. But what are your thoughts
Hey Sabrina! This would fail catastrophically in every pump bottle I’ve ever encountered. Perhaps if you have one made for giants? This scrub is thick like peanut butter, so nothing settles, but it’s definitely not pump-able!
Hi Marie!
Would I be able to use Rhassoul clay instead of Kaolin clay in this recipe? Thanks!
You can, but keep in mind that they are really different! Kaolin is light and smooth while rhassoul is heavier and can be gritty depending on the grade you have 🙂
Hi, may I know what is the amount of emulsifying wax need to be added in making an emulsion? Thank you.
That’s sort of like asking how much sugar you have to add to something to make it sweet; it depends. 25% of the oil phase is a good rule of thumb for Polawax, but it varies with the emulsifying wax and the formula. Checking with your suppliers for usage guidelines is a good place to start!
Hi Marie!
What a wonderful post. I tried recreating the scrub and all was well until day 2, when I found my creamy scrub had solidified. Bummer. Any guidance on identifying my shortcoming? Thanks!
Can anyone help me? Thank you!
It sounds like your bathroom is probably a bit cooler than mine—you can try replacing a few grams of stearic acid with the liquid oil for a softer end product 🙂
Hi Luna and Marie. Same thing happened to me, final product after a few days had solidified. Not as hard as say cocoa butter, but harder than shea, it crumbles when I dig my finger in it. And my bathroom is at around 22-23 degrees, so not cold at all. Also, the rinsing is not as complete as with other emulsified concoctions of Marie’s… Next time I am going to make a bold move and just eliminate the stearic completely, see where it takes me. No question here, just sharing of experience 🙂
Oooh, interesting! Let me know how that works 🙂 Thanks for sharing and sorry this one got all crumbly on you!
Will do, and no need to be sorry, it is rather convenient to have do all the hard formulation work and just tweak that, and I’m very grateful
Well, in that case I’m glad you enjoy tweaking 🙂
Hello, me again, reporting back. Have made this with only Ewax (from Camden Grey, in case ewaxes might be different from one supplier to another), and subbed the safflower with hemp oil because that’s what I had on hand. And of course no stearic acid, since that was the whole point of the test. Result is a creamy texture which has absorbed a bit of air from whipping, but is not as solid as creamed butter (which is what Marie’s looks like from the photos). So maybe a tad of stearic would get me there, or maybe more Ewax, or maybe more sugar, but to be honest I do like this texture so I am not sure I will do other 3 different tests! 🙂
OOoh, very cool! Thanks so much for sharing 😀 I really should get back into whipped scrubs—it’s been a while!
A few months ago I got some matcha butter from Brambleberry and I haven’t really had any idea how to use it. Well, this inspired me! I subbed the coconut oil with it; since it’s a soft butter, kinda like the consistency of avocado butter, it added even more creaminess to the scrub! I’ve got some orange butter too that’s the same consistency but with a delicious citrus smell (kinda like the orange wax, but it isn’t a photosensitizer, which is nice), so I may try something similar with that too. Love your recipes as always Marie, they’re great on their own but also easy to play around with. I changed up the essential oils too with a bit of lemon and ginger.
Oooh, that all sounds downright lovely! What a beautiful way to customize the batch 🙂 I bet doing half matcha, half orange butter would also be amazing!
What’s the purpose of the green tea extract / matcha in this mix? Could I leave it out?
It’s an antioxidant, and it’s the fancy ingredient that gives the recipe its name/theme, but it can be left out without impacting the function of the recipe 🙂
Hello. I just wanted to say I have learned so much for your videos and website. I find myself on it almost every day. Looking for ideas on my next project. I did have a question about the recipe above. It there anything I can use in place of the clay and green tea. I read through the comments but maybe I missed it. I have all the ingredients listed above and would like to create a sugar or salt scrub that is not to firm and not to liquid. Sort of like a thick lotion consistency. I hope to hear back from you as I would love your advice on this matter.
Thanks for reading! You can eliminate the clay and green tea and replace them with more liquid oil 🙂 Happy scrubbing!
Do you know of any oil-soluble preservatives that are 100% plant-derived/made from natural ingredients?
Nope; I’d recommend checking this source to learn more.
I noticed you put this scrub in kraft paper tubes. How did the tube hold up? Was it a worthwhile idea and would you do it again?
These particular kraft tubes and tubs do pretty well—I’ve tried ones from other manufacturers that soak through in under a week. That said—it’s paper. They definitely wear/age much faster than other packaging materials, and you want to avoid getting the outside wet. If you want a package that looks amazing throughout use, this probably isn’t it. They’re also way more expensive than other options, and can’t be claimed as fully biodegradable because of the adhesives, so you can’t compost them, and once they’ve started to soak up some product (this always happens around the lip of the container) you can’t recycle them, either, so they become garbage :/
Hi, I love reading your recipes and recommendation. Is Olivem 1000 suitable to be used as the ewax in this body scrub? and how would I calculate it’s amount? is it the same as recommended, 20-25% of oil part?
I haven’t tried Olivem1000 in emulsified sugar scrubs. It should work, but I can’t share any personal experiences. You could probably dial it back a bit (I think the ewax in this recipe is a bit high in general) to 10–15%. Let me know if you try it!
Hi Marie ! I only have liquid germall plus . Can i use that ? Is it oil soluble ?
It isn’t oil soluble, but you can use it as there’s an emulsifier in here 🙂 I need to update the note at the end of this post!
Hi Marie, this sounds great! Every year my family hosts a Japanese student and everyone of them hasn given me a box of matcha tea, so I can finally use it!
I was wondering if I could make a lotion, with the water part brewed green tea for a nice green tea lotion? If so, do I use a 2 gram tea bag or more? Thanks
Hey! Sadly tea oxidizes really quickly once wet (just a few hours), so it’s not well suited to including in anything with water (like a lotion) as you won’t get any benefits from it. This scrub doesn’t contain any water until the moment of use, though, so it’s a better option 🙂
Hi Marie!
Even though there is no water but I don’t want to take any risk as I will be gifting this to my friends and family and they might use it with getting water in it so can you please tell me which and how much quantity of the preservative I use? Thanks in advance!
I’d recommend liquid germall plus at 0.5% 🙂
Hello Marie! I think what you do is so wonderful!! Thank you so much for giving all of us an incredible platform to be creative and peruse DIY skincare in a fun and enriching way. (I know without humblebee & me this joyful hobby would probably be way too big of a headache for me to pursue)
Anyhow, I am dying to make a scrub like this to sell at a local beauty shop in my town. I have spent HOURS on your blog and researching and I think I’m ready. I have been practicing and mastering a beeswax lip balm, a body butter and hoping to add a scrub like this to the regimen. This comment is horribly long… I apologize!
A few questions for you: In making this scrub, would bentonite clay do well? I have some local Wyoming bentonite I could invest in. Secondly, as I wish to begin selling some products (lip balm, body butter, body scrub) I need to experiment adding a bit of preservative. Based on my research and the chance I add a lotion in the future, I was thinking optiphen plus. I also love that it is natural. Would you agree this is a good option or would you push for phenonip or liquid germall plus?
Thank you for your patience if you read this comment and thank you for all the inspiration!!
Emily Jane
Hey Emily! Thanks so much for reading—I’m so glad you’re loving Humblebee & Me and DIYing 😀
You can certainly try adding bentonite, but it is a very odd clay. Two avenues you’ll need to investigate are 1) what happens to the mixture if water is added to the scrub by the user? and 2) can you keep the mixture safely preserved if water is added by the user?
With all things preservative, especially if you are intending to sell, the best way to know if your preservative is effective is to pay for professional testing. I’ve written more about this here 🙂 I’ve had good experiences with Optiphen Plus so far, though they have been fairly limited. Liquid Germall Plus has been pretty bomb-proof in my experience 🙂
Happy making!
Hi Marie,
Would it be possible to substitute kaolin clay with Shea butter or coco butter?
You can certainly try it 🙂 It likely won’t destroy the formulation, but you’ll have to try it yourself to find out!
Hi, this recipe looks amazing. Could I replace the sugar in this recipe, for more gentle ultra fine oats and use it as a face scrub?
You could try it, but I would recommend starting with one of my formulations that is designed to be a face scrub, like this one 🙂
Hi, can this be used as a scalp scrub. I made some fermented rice water for my hair and I want to make use of the residual rice. Can I dry it and grind it into a powder then use it with bentonite clay to replace the kaoline clay I think this recipe. Would it work well for the scalp?
You can certainly try it 🙂 I think how much you like it will depend a lot on how much your hair likes oil. Happy making!
Hi! Does using cetearyl alcohol make the scrub lotion/ cream like and substituting it with stearyl acid will make it butter like? or can we obtain different texture using same stabilizing agent at different concentration?
Thank you!
Because you have used stearic acid in some scrub and cetearyl in some. Which do you think makes better scrub?
Hi Marie
can I substitute safflower with grapeseed oil ?
Yes; please read this 🙂
Hello Marie, recipe looks great, Im new at making scrubs. I dont have any clays is this necessary?
Hi Maranda! It’s not required, but this formulation is structured to include clay. Why not try this one instead? 🙂