| Last week, I received an e-mail from our technical support team asking if the blog could do a sugar scrub for a customer. The scent blend would need some tweaking and they thought it would be good to help in this fun project. Jordan is getting married in July and she wants to make a Mint Lemonade Sugar Scrub for the out of town guests and still be able to mimic the mint lemonade that will be served at the wedding. Jordan wasn’t sure how much of various scents to blend so she called on us to help. Today, I’ll be showing what we made for the scrub.
Supplies and Ingredients Since Jordan wanted a Mint Lemonade Fragrance, I needed to blend a fragrance to match her desired scent. Her first idea was Lemon Sugar with a little Spearmint Essential Oil for the mint note. I made a test with 20 drops of Lemon Sugar and 1 drop of Spearmint in a Clear Glass Dram. After I let the blend sit for an hour, I smelled it and decided that we needed to add a sharp Lemon note, because the Lemon Sugar didn’t have the tang we wanted. I added 5 drops of Lemon USA, which is our sharper Lemon Essential Oil. That fixed my Lemon notes, but there was only one person on staff who could pick up a faint mint tone to the blend. I added 1 more drop of Spearmint. I still couldn’t smell mint so I started with a new Clear Glass Dram and added 20 drops of Lemon Sugar, 5 drops of Lemon USA, and 4 drops of Spearmint. The mint note was stronger and I could finally smell the mint. This blend was very polite and I thought it was very good. I still had to go back to the drawing board to see if 8 drops of Spearmint would overpower the Lemon or not. I got a new Clear Glass Dram and tested again! I added 20 drops of Lemon Sugar, 5 drops of Lemon USA, and 8 drops of Spearmint to this dram bottle and let it sit. Wow! This blend I think was the best! There was a great balance between the mint and lemon. We didn’t want the mint to overpower the lemon, which it can do easily. Now I have a small dilemma. I need to fragrance a batch of sugar scrub, but I don’t want to sit here all day and count out drops of fragrance oil. This is when we converted the the drops to percentages. Fragrance Blend in Percentages I needed to make 1 oz of the fragrance blend for scrub testing, so I usedthe percentages to calculate how much I needed to blend enough for 1 oz. Fragrance Blend in Weight for 1 oz During my testing several of the staff fell in love with this fragrance blend, so I was able to persuade the New Products team to come up with pricing for this yummy blend! I currently have a price of $4.50 for 1 fl oz of the Jordan’s Mint Lemonade blend. We will release this blend shortly, so if you can’t wait you can blend it yourself. If you want us to blend this for you, check our New Products section. Now the fragrance has been blended, we can work on making the scrub. Jordan is planning on using Grapeseed Oil as the oil in her scrub, so we just need to mix a scrub that meets our requirements. We started with 8 ounces of Grapeseed Oil and then I started adding sugar and stirring until I had a very thick sugar scrub. I ended up using 16 ounces of sugar, which means that our sugar and oil ratio is 2:1. This ratio is one of the easiest ratios to work with on sugar scrubs. The recipe and complete directions are below. Scrub Recipe Weigh the oil into the mixing container. With recipes that you weigh like this, I like to add my fragrance oil to the fixed oils before I add the sugar. Now, add the sugar and stir thoroughly. Fill containers with mixed scrub. Stir the scrub mixture frequently while filling the jars to keep an evenly filled jar. This recipe makes about 16 fluid ounces of sugar scrub. I used a 2 oz jar for my container and I filled 8 jars.
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 Weigh the Grapeseed Oil.  Adding the fragrance blend to the oil.  Adding sugar.  All the sugar needed.  Starting to stir the sugar and oil together.  There are still a few dry patches of sugar.  Completely mixed scrub. |
 Filling the jars. |
 Capped jars waiting for labels. |
very interesting to read all of the fragrance blending test. I know I will be trying out this scrub,thanks!
Wow, thank you so very much for helping me with this recipe! I can’t wait to try it out for myself…it sounds absolutley incredible!!! I’m sure the guests at my wedding will be thanking you too!
Jordan-
Thank you for the fun project! I had so much fun making this scrub!
Lemonade mint–how very refreshing. I’ve never made a sugar scrub, but I think I’m gonna try.
This would make a lovely hostess gift to thank my summer hosts and hostesses.
Andee
I want to make a sugar scrub for my mom, but I know that the oil in these scrubs can make the shower slippery. I don’t want to take any chance that she may fall. Are the scrubs made with the liquid soap base still as slippery? Could you make one with a lotion as base?
Kim
KimVH,
Try the Brown Sugar Body Glaze in our recipes section. It has both Liquid Soap and Body Milk Bases from our catalog and it is a lovely scrub. You can look at this recipe and alter it if there are changes you want to make to it.
Another idea for making the shower floor not so slippery is a River Rocks Bath Mat. It has large flattened rock shapes and still allows lots of drainage space for the water. I found mine at Bed Bath & Beyond and I love it! It doesn’t slide and I don’t feel like I’m falling off a slick mat. Here is the direct link to the product. http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?order_num=-1&SKU=14397132&RN=13&
I hope this helps!
Hi Andee,
I just wanted to follow up and say that the mint-lemonade sugar scrubs were such a hit with our wedding guests! They really loved them & I had several people tell me that they didn’t even feel the need to apply lotion after using the scrub because it was so moisturizing. I have requests for more to be made already! Thank you so much for all your help creating the custom fragrance!
-Jordan
Jordan,
I’m so glad that everything worked out for you! It is so exciting to hear the follow up for these scrubs!
How long a shelf life does this have? Sorry it’s me again 😛
As long as no water is introduced it will last as long as the oil can last without oxidation. Once water is introduced we recommend that the more water the faster you use it. Slight amounts of water won’t do anything to the scrub, but once you get dissolved sugar on the bottom, then there is potential for problem.
would natural colorants (like powdered herbs) work in these or should I stick with a dye or nothing at all?
Herbs can work, just make sure they are dried completely before inclusion. And never add herb pieces to a product that has water and the mixture stays fluid. Decomposition smells awful.
I just made some sugar scrubs today using your recipe and products! It is completely wonderful! I was wondering, what would you charge for a 4oz jar of this sugar scrub? I added vitamin E, a dash of crushed (dried) spearment leaves, and a bit of kaolin clay to mine.
I would add up all of the costs of each item. Figure the complete cost of each jar you produce. Then multiply that amount by 4 to 6. The reason I choose 4 for this type of product is that you need to cover the cost of that jar, plus a new one, plus overhead, plus your payroll.
Consider this price against what you see in the market. Adjust as necessary to make the product viable in the marketplace.
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