As with my hair, I try not to bother my face by washing it too often (which also, conveniently, means I don’t have to bother myself to wash my face—win/win, says I). Most of the time a simple swipe with some toner will do the trick, but sometimes I need a good mid-week, between masks scrubbing. This sensitive skin scrub fits the bill—cleansing without being irritating.
Oatmeal, milk, and honey are classic skincare ingredients. Oatmeal contains polysaccharides, which, when combined with water, create a barrier that helps protect your skin. Milk is loaded with beneficial fats and vitamins, and honey is a humectant and a great all-natural antibacterial agent. Brilliant!
Baking soda and clay are also two of my favourite body ingredients. Baking soda is an amazing exfoliator—gentle, yet effective. Mixed with the insoluble fibre from the oats, your dead skin cells won’t know what hit them (in a good way). Clay is great for pulling out impurities and balancing the skin.
A bit of ground up bar soap boosts the cleansing abilities of the scrub without taking you all the way to washing your face with plain soap, which can be quite drying, especially in the winter.
Lasty, essential oils of sandalwood, jasmine, and lavender. Well, the lavender was essential—the other two weren’t quite as they are expensive. Dude. At least $50 (and up to $100!) for 5mL of jasmine absolute, and just a little less for 5mL of sandalwood essential oil, depending on the variety. I don’t like them that much! Ich. Anyhow, this blend is lovely—intoxicating, complex, and overall quite lovely. It can, however, be a bit overpowering if you find yourself to be sensitive to strong scents, in which case you might want to knock it down to one drop of each.
The scrub is great for a bit of a mini-facial. Simply take a teaspoon or two of the mixture into your palm and gently massage it into your skin in circular motions, using your finger tips. Rinse off and finish off with a bit of argan oil (USA / Canada). Lovely. I love how clean and warm my face feels after using this scrub.
Oatmeal, Milk, and Honey Sensitive Skin Facial Scrub
2 tbsp white white kaolin clay (USA / Canada)
2 tbsp oatmeal
1 tbsp baking soda (USA / Canada)
1 tbsp dried milk powder (dairy or coconut)
2 tsp dried honey or 1 tbsp raw honey
1 thumb-sized chunk of dried soap2 drops jasmine essential oil
2 drops sandalwood essential oil
1 drop lavender essential oilCombine everything in a coffee grinder and blend until completely uniform. You should have a light, fluffy powder.
To use, massage about 2 teaspoons into your face in a circular motion and rinse off.
I have very sensitive skin and am always looking for natural products that also don’t irritate my skin. I love oatmeal for my skin and am anxious to try this scrub. Thank you so much for sharing the recipe 🙂
Thanks for reading! Let me know how this scrub works for your skin 🙂
Hello there, Miss Marie. 🙂 I am new to your site, but not so much a newbie to the natural approach to skincare. I have been faithfully using a line of mineral cosmetics/natural skincare for 2 years and counting. 🙂 I would not have it any other way either. This scrub sounds super yummy and easy to whip up. I will have to give it a go, for sure. I am a huge fan of raw honey for skin applications, from everything to acne bumps, chafed skin, and cuts. I have applied it straight to my face and it feels heavenly. 🙂 Anyway, I am totally enjoying the site, and cannot wait to try some of your DIY ideas.
Thanks for reading, Amy! It’s great to “meet” other people who are natural skin care aficionados—I’m slowly working on converting all my friends, but I rarely meet other people who care as much as I do from the get-go 🙂 Which line of mineral make-up do you use? I would be very interested to go and creep their ingredients, lol. I finally bought some beautiful raw honey at a farmer’s market in Invermere last year and I keep trying to remember to include it in my recipes and day-to-day routine. I should really decant some into a smaller container for my bureau as I never remember to get it from the kitchen 😛 Thanks for inspiring me 🙂 And thanks for reading, I really appreciate it!
Raw honey is a beautiful thing, indeed. 🙂 You’re welcome for the inspiration. My cosmetics/skincare? http://www.theallnaturalface.com is the place I order from. They are American, as am I. 🙂 I totally fell in LOVE with her products, and will never, ever put anything fake on my skin again. Anytime anyone asks me about my makeup or why my skin looks so good, I always launch into “happy animated lecture mode” and extol the benefits of an all natural routine. Sometimes I get takers, sometimes I get treated like a crazy lady but I don’t care. I know what works, and I am thrilled to help anyone else who cares to learn.
Anyway, I agree. It’s always nice meeting others who are passionate about this sort of thing!
I took the liberty of creeping her ingredients and I’ll definitely be trying some of her sort-of-recipes 😛 A lot of my make-up recipes use really similar recipes if you want to try making your own 🙂 I totally know all about the “happy animated lecture mode”, I do the same thing with my stuff lol 😛
I absolutely love this blog. Where can I get powdered clay? I am addin gyou to my favorites.
I get all of my clays from New Directions Aromatics (and I may have a clay problem, haha)!
Hi Marie!!! I just made this facial scrub, using French green clay, without the milk! It’s suuuuppppperr gentle! I kind of had to get used to the fact that it was not so rough on my skin, but I think that is a good thing anyway. I used to use proactive in the past, and the main cleanser was a beady one, you scrubbed your face with that crab 2x/day, not to mention the benzoyl peroxide in it and all that! After using this scrub, I put on your “Awesome Homemade Facial Mask” with propolis in it, and added tea tree oil to it for acne prone skin! It smells amazing! I’m so happy to have found your site, I especially LOOVVVEE making facial masks!!! I am always trying a new one, and I noticed out of all crunchy sites, you have the most variety of facial masks! Thank you!!
Awesome! Glad you’re loving it 🙂 Gentle exfoliation is really all the face needs, but we are often told that we need to buff our faces into oblivion (among all the other things we’re told to do to our faces). I have found that face masks and black soap is really all I need—I’m so glad I’ve found something that works, and I’m thrilled to be helping you find something that works for you! Also, I’ve just figured out a new face mask that I looooove, so stay tuned for that 😉
I’ve made this scrub and if feels lovely on my skin. One question. I used raw honey, not the powder so it became kind of like a paste. Should I keep it in the fridge or it’s okay to sit in the bathroom. Also how often would you recomend using face scrub?
Thanks. Love you blog and trying lots of recipes. Love the results and thanks for sharing.
Hmm… this is a bit of a tricky one. Usually when you add water to something it spoils quite quickly (the milk in this alone would sour or mould in a matter of days). However, honey isn’t water, and has been known to last for thousands of years. I would probably keep it in the fridge to be safe, watching for signs of spoilage (weird growths, funny smells, etc.). And, in the future, just whip up the dry powder, and then mix in a bit of the honey with a wee bit when you’re ready to use it 🙂
Hi Marie,
I love this blog! I found it when I was trying to make soaps, and made my first batch of Christmassy soaps a few weeks ago 😀 Anyway, I have question about the milk powder. Is it the same as the dry milk powder that you can get in grocery stores? Or is this specifically for cosmetics use?
Thanks!
Jillian 😀
Hi Jillian! I’m so thrilled you found my blog & have gotten into soap making—how exciting! As for the milk powder, yup, it’s exactly the same stuff you’d buy at the grocery store 🙂 You can use most grocery store versions of things in cosmetics and soaps, but not vice versa as food grade items are held to higher standards for storage and transport. However, because of these higher standards, grocery store equivalents are generally much more expensive (try comparing things like almond, avocado, and coconut oil at the grocery store to the prices you’ll pay online for cosmetic versions and you’ll see what I mean!). Milk powder is one ingredient (along with baking soda & epsom salts) where the price difference isn’t that great, and the ease of getting it at the store/already having in my kitchen for baking is an added bonus.
Awesome, thanks so much!
🙂
I just tried this scrub and the baking soda was very irritating. I felt like it was burning and I do not consider myself to have sensitive skin. Is the amount of 1 Tbsp baking soda correct or am I just really sensitive to it?
Hi Danielle! It sounds like you are probably extra sensitive to baking soda. 1 tbsp is correct as this is supposed to make enough scrub for several uses, but you can eliminate it if your skin doesn’t like it 🙂
I tried it without baking soda and I think it will now be my favourite product to use on my face (other than organ oil-you have converted me! 🙂 ). I love your website and have tried quite a few products. Lots of inspiration for my new business. Do you have anywhere that people can donate some funds for all the hard work you do or is just pure hobby?
Hi Danielle! I don’t have a donate button, but you can support me by purchasing a copy (or three!) of my book when it comes out 🙂
Hi Marie,
Since it’s a long weekend here in Ontario I decided to do some DIYing with my extra day off. I have bookmarked a number of your recipes so I started with this one. I made a few changes mostly because I didn’t have some of the ingredients. I used Rhassoul instead of kaolin because I have a ton of it, I swapped the baking soda for sea salt since I don’t react well to baking soda and I used bee pollen instead of honey powder because I don’t have any. I also used African black soap for the soap portion. It worked like a charm; exfoliates but still gentle. I was wondering what I could add to make this more like a ready-to-use paste? Thanks for all your great recipes, I’ll be posting more of my results.
Hi Ana! We’re enjoying the same long weekend here in Alberta 🙂 I’m so glad you’re liking this scrub! Funnily enough, the changes you made would make the scrub less gentle than originally intended. I wouldn’t add anything to this to make it a paste—water will make it quite prone to spoilage (unless you want to add a broad spectrum preservative), and I think you’d find adding oil would diminish the cleansing properties of the scrub.
You’re right Marie, it does make it a little less gentle but since I have oily skin, it works for me, although with our insanely cold winter this year I’ve been getting some flaky patches on my cheeks but this is great to scrubbing away that flaky skin. It’s certainly more gentle than the apricot scrubs I used to use. Since everything goes in the coffee grinder it makes a nice fine powder and I find the largest “pieces” are from the oats. Of course you’re right about adding water or oil (I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the options this weekend – lol) so I think I will just leave it as is. I used it this morning, moisturizing with argan oil and my skin feels great. I will definitely be making it a permanent part of my skin care routine along with your green clay face masks and my super softening full fat yogurt-raw honey face mask. If you’ve never tried one, I highly recommend it once a week. Thanks again!
That’s awesome! I’m so glad to be part of your routine, that’s the highest praise for me 🙂 And I will have to try a yoghurt mask in the near future, that sounds divine 🙂 I think it’s been on my to-do list for ages, but it’s always good to get a reminder to pull it off the list and actually DO it!
Hello!
I’m new to your website and looking forward to making some of your facial scrubs.
I am also learning about essential oils, etc., and I’m wondering if adding Tea Tree Oil would be a beneficial additive since it is known to have anti-bacterial and anti-irritant properties?
Hi Chuck! You can generally add tea tree oil to pretty much anything, just keep it away from the lips as it is poisonous. Keep in mind, though, that many EOs have antibacterial and anti-irritant properties, so if you’re not hugely keen on the scent of tea tree, there are lots of other options 🙂
Hi Marie,
I’m thinking about making this one but instead of the soap, using SCI?
What do you think?
Yes, definitely! Just be sure to wear your dust mask when you make it and it’ll be the bomb-diggety
How much of SCI should be added