Mint Chocolate body scrub

Over the past few years, my husband has been making an effort to reduce the amount of "chemical" in his life. I know, I know, I already teased him about the word chemicals. Everything is chemicals. We know that, but I also know what he means.  He's been eating more locally grown, organic produce and grass fed meat. He's switched to toothpaste with fewer hard to pronounce ingredients. Things like that.

In an effort to help him know what's in the products he's using, I started making soap at home, from scratch. With the help of some lye calculators and a lot of internet help with recipes, troubleshooting  and moral support, I've made several bars of soap that have all been well received in our house.  This post, however, is not about soap! I currently have 2 tabletops covered with soap curing until it's ready to use so the last thing I needed was another batch of soap! That didn't stop me from perusing pintrest for new, interesting recipes while waiting for my kid at play rehearsal.

Recipes for soap tend to get mixed in with recipes for lip balms and lotions and other DIY bath and beauty products. One immediately caught my eye! A chocolate mint sugar body scrub!  Girl scout cookie season is over and we are sad to see our thin mints leave but now we can just bathe in them instead of eat them!

The original post and recipe is from Henry Happened and her photos are so much more creative and awesome looking than mine! 

Not her picture, just my sad camera photo!

I mixed up a batch. I made a few modifications, one being that I used half sunflower and half olive oil because I didn't have almond oil, and the other was using a plastic bag instead of a mixing bowl to contain all the thin-minty goodness. At first, the mixture didn't seem all that interesting and I wondered if I had missed some critical part of the recipe (which is hard, because the recipe is really simple but crazier things have happened!) I smushed it around to get it all mixed well, then added the oil and peppermint EO.  That's when magic happened!  The color changed and the texture changed and it started to look yummy!  When I opened the bag, the smell was fabulous!  I poured it into a plastic container I had hanging about.  I might have used some nail polish remover to scrub off the name of the gelati company but anyone that read this blog knows I'm not in it for that much effort! :)

The result is a delightful mixture of chocolate and mint and just enough oil to hold it together and make it easy to handle. I brought the jar up to my daughter who opened it, smelled it and ran to the shower to try it!

She emerged a little while later freshly scrubbed and raving about how she felt like she just covered herself in chocolate scented lotion.  Her skin is soft but not greasy and while the smell was great in the shower, it's not overpowering on her skin.  I have a feeling she's not going to surrender this and I may have to make another batch for MY shower!

For the full recipe, and much prettier pictures, please go to Henry Happened! If you're missing your thin mints, this is a way to get them back, at least in spirit, until next year!  If you do try it, be careful! It can make the tub slippery!  Use appropriate caution if your tub or shower gets slippery!

And check back soon for stories of soap and playing chemist in the kitchen!