In Honor of Earth Day–DIY Facial Scrub to replace microbeads

I am so proud to live in a GreenStep City. In my hometown we have the “magnificent 7” that have been instrumental in working with the city and educating the public. At a recent meeting one of the members was saying that she was supervised to learn how damaging micro bead scrubbers are so the environment. Those little synthetic beads don’t biodegrade and get washed down the drain and into our water supply.

Since GreenStep is all about identifying small and doable action steps that build to big change this member said looking for an alternative was an action step she wanted to start with.

Unfortunately, our city’s Earth Day Celebration (April 22) was canceled, so I thought in honor of Earth Day I would share my own favorite DIY facial scrub.

This is based off of Rosemary Gladstar’s Basic scrub, also called “Miracle Grains” in some sources. Gladstar’s original recipe has spread far and wide, and I am not sure what the original looked like, but here is the recipe I came up with using what I have on hand.

3/4 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup brown rice
1/4 cup almond meal
1/8 cup dried lavender flowers
1/8 cup dried calendula flowers
1/8 cup poppy seeds
2 cups cosmetic clay

The flowers might be the hardest items to source but our natural food coop has these in the bulk herb/spice section. You can use whatever your favorites are (rose would be really nice) and even dry some flowers that will soon be coming up.

Clay can also be hard to find. I got mine from Mountain Rose Herbs. But your coop would probably have some as well.

I have a vitamix with a dry/grain attachment I used to grind this up. I store the dry mix in a quart jar, but keep a smaller 1/2 pint jar in the shower (use a plastic lid). For the smaller jar I mix 4-5 TBSP of the mix with 1 1/2 Tbsp honey and enough filtered water to make a paste.

Dry mix in a quart jar, to use mix with honey and water.

This is what I use to wash my face–no soap. When I was younger I was very acne prone. I don’t know if I would have felt comfortable only using this scrub on a daily basis then but now I love it, it is not so drying and is beautifully exfoliating. Plus not only is it biodegradable but you could eat it is you really wanted to, though the clay is a bit yucky.

More Earth Festivities include planning our new medicinal herb garden. How are you celebrating Earth Day?