Our Military Life Blog

DIY Vanilla Pumpkin Body Scrub

Starbucks announced that their pumpkin spice latte was back in season so I knew it was safe to start expecting the pumpkin-everything-else to begin making its way out, too. Hey, I’m not against it. I love the fall months, I love warm sweaters, and I do, indeed, happen to love pumpkin spiced coffee as well! It’s just hard to comprehend that summer was here and gone so quickly!! Halloween costumes are in the stores and before we know it it will be Christmas and… okay. I’m getting ahead of myself here. Back to the pumpkin.

Along with cooler weather happens to come dry skin, at least in my case. I recently discovered that using coconut oil for a skin moisturizer works wonders! But I am going to begin needing an exfoliate to rub off the dead cells, too – ugh, gross. So I decided to spend my afternoon mixing and creating a moisturizing body scrub… ::drum roll please:: … that smells like pumpkin!!! BAM! Goodbye Summer. HELLO FALL!

If you’ve never made your own sugar scrub before, it’s incredibly easy. And they also make adorable gifts (remember, Christmas is around the corner! Okay, okay, I’ll stop.) To top it off, I created a cutesie little label you can even print off to add to your jars if you’d like. But let me start at the beginning first…

These are the things you’ll need:

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  • 1/2 cup coconut oil
  • 1 – 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
  • 1/8 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/8 tsp ground cloves
  • Red and yellow food coloring

Step 1) Melt the coconut oil over medium low heat and then remove from stove top. It will need to cool just a tad so it won’t melt the sugar when you mix them together. Add vanilla extract and mix well. You will notice at first it separates like oil and water but the more you stir, the extract will disperse into hundreds of tiny little brown spots. This is perfect.

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Step 2) Add the spices and mix well. Pour 1 cup of sugar into a medium sized bowl and add the coconut oil and spice mixture to the sugar. Combine. It is at this point that you can determine if you want to add the additional 1/2 cup of sugar or not. You may prefer your body scrub to be more dry and rough with sugar or if you are like me, you may prefer that it be more of a liquid (oil) to moisturize with.

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Step 3) Your concoction at this point will be brown, as seen in the photo above. Refrain from eating it because it DOES smell delicious!! Put a few scoops into your jar and then you will add food coloring to the rest to create layers.

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Step 4) Add 4 drops of yellow food coloring to your brown sugar mixture to create a yellow/brown layer. Add a few scoops of this to the jar on top of the brown mixture. Then add 2 drops of red food coloring to the remaining yellow sugar mixture that you just made and stir well to create an orange color. This is what you will top the rest of your jar off with. Be careful not to add extra food coloring because you don’t want to stain the skin when you use it!

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Close the jar, tie a bow, and print the label that I have provided for you at the end of this blog!

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To print the label:

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Right click and save the photo of the label. Open the picture on your computer and right click and hit “copy”. Then open a Word document and “paste”. You will be able to adjust the edges of the photo to the size that you need based on the size jar that you are using. Then print!

I’d love to see how your creations turn out. Share you photos in the comments below!!

For more fun DIY projects, follow me at MyMilitarySavings.com!