This easy DIY lip scrub recipe is made with simple ingredients, only takes a minute to make and will leave you with soft, healthy lips!
As the cold weather sets in and the winter months approach, chapped, dry lips can become an all-too-common struggle. Combined with the dry air of artificial heating, it’s a total nightmare!
One of the best ways to combat this seasonal challenge is by looking after the fragile skin of your lips. Whilst lip balm is inevitable, sometimes, it’s simply not enough. We need to get rid of the dead skin cells first—and this easy homemade lip scrub will do that for us!
Making your own lip scrub isn’t only a simple and cost-effective solution, but it also allows you to choose the ingredients to your specific needs, ensuring your lips stay soft, smooth, and hydrated all winter long.
In this post, I'll guide you through the process of making your own homemade lip scrub with natural ingredients that will help protect and nourish your lips against the harsh winter elements.
Benefits
- gently exfoliates
- gets rid of dead skin cells
- increases blood flow
- plumps lips (temporary effect)
- nourishes and replenishes
- all-natural ingredients—no toxic chemicals!
This effective lip scrub gently removes dead skin cells from your lips and encourages the new skin cells to come up to the surface.
The massage and exfoliating ingredients increase blood circulation so nutrients can be transported to this area. More blood flow means your lips get the nourishment they so desperately need.
It also means your lips plump a little, making them look smoother and healthier. If you use peppermint oil, you can enhance this effect (please note, it’ll only be temporary).
Ingredients
For this easy recipe, we basically only need 2-3 ingredients: a peeling ingredient for gentle exfoliation, a carrier oil to ensure that the grains slide easily and essential oils for enhanced effects.
There are more natural ingredients you can add of which I list some below. You’ll also get a few options to choose from so you can tailor your DIY lip scrub to your needs.
- carrier oil of choice (like jojoba oil or almond oil)
- peeling ingredient of choice (brown or white sugar or sea salt)
- essential oils (such as peppermint or lavender essential oil)
Optional Ingredients
- shea butter
- raw honey
- vitamin E oil
(see recipe card for quantities)
Carrier Oils
For soft lips, we need the powerful fatty acids that oils contain. They offer incredible benefits for our skin, especially dry skin, from hydration to anti-inflammatory properties, to fortifying the skin barrier and healing small wounds.
The slippery texture of oil also acts as a sliding agent for the grains (whether that’s salt, sugar or coffee grounds for you) so we don’t irritate the skin!
Most likely, you’ll be making this natural lip scrub in the cooler months when our lips are strained the most. In this case, I don’t recommend using coconut oil because simply, it’s solid in cold temperatures. And that’s a nuisance, let’s be honest.
This is why using oils such as grapeseed oil, avocado oil, or almond oil is a great idea! Coconut oil has amazing benefits for our skin but other oils do too.
Which carrier oil you want to choose is totally up to you. They’re all suitable, and all of them promote healthy skin and smooth lips. It really doesn’t matter which one you add to your DIY lip scrub.
Extra virgin olive oil, organic coconut oil (if making this recipe for summer), avocado oil and almond oil are more on the heavier side and will nourish your broken, dry lips a little better.
My favourite carrier oil is jojoba oil because of its high vitamin E content which is excellent for smoothing dry skin, preventing flakiness and improving skin elasticity.
Sugar or Salt?
Both have an abrasive texture that is able to remove dead skin cells. Sugar is a natural humectant, meaning it hydrates your skin, whereas sea salt has antibacterial properties to offer.
Here again, it doesn’t matter all too much which one you ultimately choose. Personally, I prefer sugar over salt because of its moisturising effect.
The most important thing to remember is to use a fine texture. That means a fine sea salt. Or for sugar, that means refined, white sugar or brown sugar. Fine cane sugar works too.
If you’re completely against buying any highly processed foods, you can give coconut sugar a go. Sieving the sugar through a fine sieve might be a good idea to eliminate the coarser grains first.
An alternative to salt and sugar is coffee grounds! Before you ditch them in the morning after brewing your delicious cuppa, wait! Dry them first and reuse them for your natural scrub.
Coffee improves blood circulation, so if that’s what you’re after, then this is for you. I’ve got a honey coffee scrub recipe here on my blog that you can use for a lip scrub too!
Essential Oils
Essential Oils are completely optional. But adding them also gives you a chance to enhance the healing properties of your DIY lip scrub.
Lavender essential oil is my go-to ingredient (hence the name of my blog ;)) for most of my recipes. It’s the Swiss army knife amongst the essential oils and always a great addition to your skincare.
Lavender has antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, soothing and healing properties and helps improve your skin health and encourage your lips to heal.
Peppermint oil also has antibacterial properties but also stimulates blood flow. It is known for its plumping effect on our skin (though, only temporarily).
But, a little word of warning here! If your lips are chapped, or damaged in any way, you want to refrain from it. I do not recommend it. Peppermint oil will sting and probably burn for a bit.
A better oil for chapped, dry lips is chamomile essential oil because it’s soothing and beneficial for red, inflamed and sensitive skin.
Optional Ingredients
In addition to the above-mentioned ingredients, you can add shea butter (for deeper hydration and healing), raw honey (antibacterial, healing and hydrating) or vitamin E oil (a bunch of skin benefits!).
However, to be honest, I believe these optional ingredients are better in a lip balm (like this easy DIY lip balm with shea butter and cacao butter) as they stay on the lips that way so they can do their magic.
Instructions
How to make this DIY lip scrub
In a small bowl, mix your chosen ingredients. Transfer into a small jar or container for storage. Done!
Making small batches is always a good idea. As you only use your own lip scrub for a small part of your body, you also won’t need much.
How to use this DIY lip scrub
This DIY lip scrub is designed for the thin, delicate skin of your lips and we need to address them a bit differently than other parts of our body. The sensitive skin needs to be treated gently.
Step 1. Dig up a small amount of scrub with the tip of your finger and massage your lips in a circular motion. Be gentle here and don’t apply too much pressure. Do this for 1-2 minutes.
Please listen to your body, to your lips. If you can’t tolerate the scrub for that long, stop when you have to! Be gentle, always!
Step 2. Remove the scrub with warm water or a warm washcloth, making sure you do this gently.
Step 3. Finish with applying a natural lip balm (like this easy DIY 3-ingredient lip balm) to moisturise your lips.
How often you can use this DIY lip scrub
As with all scrubs, once a week is enough. You need to give your skin time to regenerate itself.
If you have very dry lips or if they’re chapped, apply pure cocoa butter or shea butter to your lips and let them absorb it. You can easily make a lip balm out of these two ingredients too, see the recipe here!
Try to avoid conventional lip balm as they contain drying ingredients (so you need to use up more of it, hence by more of it).
Storage
As always, if using essential oils, you need to store your personal care products away from the light. Ideally, in an amber glass jar or container.
You can keep this DIY lip scrub in your bathroom cupboard, at room temperature, for a few months. The shelf life of salt and sugar is fairly long. Just double-check the oil’s expiry date.
Top Tip
This wonderful and easy recipe also makes a fantastic face scrub! Its fine texture is great for sensitive facial skin! And if using sea salt, it’s also a great treatment for blemished skin and acne!
📖 Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoon / 25 g white or brown sugar or fine sea salt or coffee grounds, see notes
- 1 tbsp Jojoba Oil see notes for alternatives
- 1 drop lavender essential oil optional, or peppermint essential oil, see notes
Optional Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon shea butter
- 1 teaspoon raw honey
- 5 drops pure vitamin E oil
Instructions
How to Make
- In a small bowl, mix your chosen ingredients. Transfer into a small jar or container for storage. Done!
How to Use
- Dig up a small amount of scrub with the tip of your finger and massage your lips in a circular motion. Be gentle here and don’t apply too much pressure. Do this for 1-2 minutes.Please listen to your body, to your lips. If you can’t tolerate the scrub for that long, stop when you have to! Be gentle, always!
- Remove the scrub with warm water or a warm washcloth, making sure you do this gently.
- Finish with applying a natural lip balm to moisturise your lips.
- As with all scrubs, once a week is enough. You need to give your skin time to regenerate itself.
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