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How to Throw a DIY Sugar Scrub Party + Recipe

Filed Under: Soaks & Scrubs, Tips & Tricks

What’s better than crafting? Crafting with family and friends of course! A few weeks ago, I invited a couple girlfriends to eat, drink, chat and make sugar scrub and nail polish. Both projects are great for parties because they are fun, easy, and attendees can take home their creations the same day.

You can have two DIY stations like I did (nail polish + sugar scrub), or focus on one project. In this post, I’ll show you how to setup a DIY sugar scrub station for your next party…look out for a “How to Throw a DIY Nail Polish Party,” post in a few weeks! =)

During this party, we created a Winter Gardenia Sugar Scrub. The scrub can be created directly in the 4 oz. plastic bail jar, so cleanup is easy. If you have a few scales, you can create the recipe using weight. If not, the volume amounts are listed in the recipe below as well. If measuring in volume, simply fill the jar to the top with sugar and stir. While this recipe features a specific fragrance oil and jojoba bead, you can use any fragrance or color of jojoba bead you’d like!

Created with moisturizing meadowfoam oil and potassium cocoate, this sugar scrub leaves hands feeling soft and silky. The Jasmine Jojoba Beads add non-scratchy, gentle exfoliation and a pop of elegant color. Don’t forget to add preservative! While this recipe does not contain water, this scrub may be stored in the shower and come in contact with water. To be on the safe side, Optiphen is added to the scrub to keep the scrub mold and bacteria free.

Winter Gardenia Sugar Scrub Recipe:

1 Four Ounce Jar
.5 oz . (6 tsp) Meadowfoam Oil
.3 oz. (2 tsp) Potassium Cocoate
2 mL Optiphen
2 mL Winter Gardenia Fragrance Oil
3.5 ounces Granulated Sugar
.2 oz. (2 tsp) Jasmine Jojoba Beads

ONE: Place meadowfoam oil and potassium cocoate in the jar and stir until well blended.
TWO: Add 2 mL optiphen and 2 mL fragrance oil. Stir well to thoroughly combine.
THREE: Add 2 tsp. of jojoba beads and the sugar into your jar. Carefully mix all ingredients together. Label your scrub and enjoy!

If you’d like to purchase enough ingredients to host a party, the kit below includes enough to create ten scrubs. This kit also includes labels, instruction cards and cards to label the DIY station. Simply download and print! The only ingredient you need to provide is granulated sugar.

Kit Includes:

Ten 4 oz. Plastic Bail Jars
4 oz. Meadowfoam Oil
16 oz. Potassium Cocoate
1 oz. Optiphen
2 oz. Winter Gardenia Fragrance Oil
2 oz. Jasmine Jojoba Beads
20 Droppers with Suction Bulb
Sugar Scrub How-To Digital Template + Labels

Click here to add everything you need for this project to your Bramble Berry shopping cart!

When setting up your scrub making area, keep in mind some containers and tools will be necessary. For the jojoba beads, small sample cups allowed the jojoba beads to be easily passed around the station. One large bowl of sugar with several measuring cups allowed multiple people access to the sugar at one time. One pound of sugar was plenty!

  • One large bowl of sugar
  • Measuring cups to scoop sugar
  • Several sample cups of jojoba beads
  • Teaspoons and tablespoons to scoop jojoba beads, oils, potassium cocoate
  • Cup of droppers to add fragrance oil and preservative
  • Plenty of spoons to stir the scrub together (at least one for each guest)
  • Scissors and pens to cut out scrub labels and write the name

If you are worried about your counters, you may want to lay a protective surface on top. The great thing about this recipe is there are no colorants that could possibly stain clothing or counters. The only ingredient to be careful with is the fragrance oil, as fragrance oils can cause irritation if directly applied to the skin.

To help my party-goers feel confident in creating the scrub, I first demonstrated how to make the scrub. Then, I passed out the recipe cards so each person had the measurements and directions to easily reference. It was so fun to see the non-DIYers get excited about their homemade scrub!

Adding the jojoba beads into the liquid ingredients first helps the jojoba beads distribute throughout the scrub easily. Remember to have plenty of spoons on hand to ensure all the party-goers can thoroughly mix their scrubs.

Of course in addition to DIY, there was plenty of food and beverages to enjoy. See that cheese plate in the corner? So delicious! If serving food, I recommend having it in a separate area from the scrub ingredients to avoid any food/beauty ingredient cross contamination =)

Once the scrub is thoroughly mixed and complete, it’s time to add a label. The sugar scrub labels were specifically designed to allow the party attendees to name their own scrub. You can write the name of the fragrance oil, or get creative and come up with a unique personalized name!

Have you ever thrown a DIY crafting party? I would love to hear what you made, and if you have any tips on making the party run smoothly!

Like it? Share it!

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42 Comments

  1. This is a great idea for a party!! Thank you for all the ideas, tips and recipes! 🙂

    • You’re very welcome Michelle! Thanks for your sweet comment. 🙂

      -Kelsey with Bramble Berry

  2. I think I’m doing it wrong…
    I mixed everything as it said..I think.. And ended up with something the consistency of warm marshmallow. While this isn’t all bad, it wasn’t quite what I was looking for. It’s so thick that there are air pockets everywhere in the jar. Oops..
    I mixed the meadow and cocoate first and it turned white, then the optiphen and fragrance next..this is where things got thick. I made 3 small batches each with a different fragrance. In one batch I tried mixing the meadow and cocoate, then adding the optiphen and mixing that without the fragrance. It seems to be the optiphen that is making the mixture go from runny to taffy. Any advice would be appreciated! Thank you!

    • Hi Samantha!

      I’m sorry about that! As you stir the liquid ingredients together, they do get quite thick. You can see that in step two in this tutorial: https://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body-tutorials/cleansing-orange-spice-salt-scrub/

      However, once you add the exfoliants the liquid should distribute throughout the mixture! Is it too thick to mix in the jojoba beads and sugar? Let me know and we’ll get this figured out. 🙂

      -Kelsey with Bramble Berry

        • How much sugar are you adding to the scrub? Thanks for answering my questions!

          -Kelsey with Bramble Berry

          • I think I figured it out… I wasn’t adding anything by weight and using fl.oz. instead.. (Even for the sugar….) Weighing them it came out less tacky and much smoother. By weight I needed a few ml extra of the cocoate and meadow.
            It’s still not as runny as I’d like, but its much better than the previous marshmallow dough that I’d concocted.

          • That’s great! We find weight is a bit more accurate for this recipe. If you want the scrub a bit more runny, you can add some more oil. That will help make it more liquidy. I would start off with about .5 ounces. Then, you can add more from there until you get a consistency you like. 🙂

            -Kelsey with Bramble Berry

  4. Hi,
    I tried this recipe and loved it. I would like to gift this to my loved one’s so
    I would like to know the Shelf life of this product.
    Thanks in advance. 🙂

    • Hi Haritha!

      That’s awesome, so glad you love the recipe! This scrub will last a year or so. 🙂

      -Kelsey with Bramble Berry

  5. Hi,
    I don’t find safer preservatives in my place. If I order from brambleberry, the shipping cost is very expensive for me. Can I use witch Hazel as a preservative in my products? Please help regarding this. I am very much frustrated in searching for optiphen and phenonip.
    Thanks in advance.

    • Hi Haritha!

      Witch hazel will not help prevent microbes and bacteria, so we don’t recommend using it as a preservative.

      You can leave the preservative out of this recipe if you like. Typically, we only include preservatives in recipes with water. While scrubs don’t contain water, they can get water splashed into them when they’re being used. We added a preservative to be extra careful, but it is not required. The Talk It Out Tuesday: Preservatives has more information: http://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body-tutorials/lotion/talk-it-out-tuesday-preservatives/

      If you are in the UK or Australia, there are stores there that sell Bramble Berry products. That may be an option for you! Also, some of our international customers go together on orders to help split shipping costs. 🙂

      -Kelsey with Bramble Berry

      Soaping All Over The World: Resources For International Soapers: http://www.soapqueen.com/bramble-berry-news/soaping-world-resources-international-soapers/

      • Sharing the shipping price is a great Idea. I will find out if anybody wants to order from your site, so that I can share my shipping expenses.
        Thanks a lot. 🙂

        • Hi Haritha!

          You’re welcome! You may also like our Teach Soap Forum. You can ask other soapers questions and see if any of them can split shipping with you! 🙂

          -Kelsey with Bramble Berry

          Teachsoap.com/forum

      • I would like to use Vit E for preserving and Citric Acid and/or Ascorbic Acid to help with extending the oils shelf life, as well as the benefits of Ascorbic Acid, in my sugar scrubs. Can you give a recommendation of how much of each I should use? I’m very new at this and want to make a sugar scrub like the one I’m currently buying, which is rather expensive. It contains vit. E and citric acid but none of the other preservatives I seen mentioned in the blogs. Thank you for your time and help.

  6. Hi,
    I don’t find optiphen in my place. Can you please suggest me any substitute for optiphen?
    Thanks in advance.

  7. I wanted to make this to give as Christmas gifts. I only needed 8, so I multiplied each of the ingredients by 8 and made it as one big batch. I must have done something wrong, because my scrub came out very dry, nothing like the photo. I could easily make sandcastles with this scrub, they would easily hold their shape! Did I scale up incorrectly? I went with: 4oz meadowfoam oil, 2.4oz potassium cocoate, 8ml Optiphen ND, 8ml Winter Gardenia FO, and 1oz of the jojoba beads (I mistakenly ordered 1 packet instead of 2). I weighed out all of the ingredients except for the Optiphen and FO. Any suggestions for rescuing this batch? Thanks!

    • Hi Christine!

      Hmm, that’s weird! I believe you increased the recipe correctly, so I’m not sure why it’s dry.

      The great thing is you can totally save this scrub by adding some more meadowfoam and potassium cocoate. I would recommend adding them about .5 oz at a time until you get a nice liquidy consistency. Keep track of how much you add, because you’ll need to increase your preservative as well. You want the Optiphen to be .5-1.5% of your total recipe.

      You can also add a couple more mL of fragrance oil if you want that scent a little stronger. Just make sure to weigh out your scrub and plug it into the Fragrance Calculator. That way you can find out the right amount of scent to add. 🙂

      -Kelsey with Bramble Berry

      Fragrance Calculator: https://www.brambleberry.com/Pages/Fragrance-Calculator.aspx

  8. I recently made this using Sleigh Ride FO and I really love the results! I plan to make more for Christmas gifts and would like to know if I can substitute Optiphen ND for the Optiphen? I bought the Optiphen ND a few months ago and used it to make the Bridal Gift Sugar Scrub and I would like to be able to use it in other recipes as well! Thank you all at Brambleberry for all of the neat recipes and ideas!

  9. I am wondering what would be a good substitute for the Meadowfoam Oil? Would Sweet Almond or Avocado oil work as well?
    I love the color of this scrub! It is beautiful.
    Thank you so much!

  11. LOVE this! I will be doing this soon! Perfect timing with these DIY tutorials as I’ve been wanting to expand my business to include DIY hostess parties where I charge for my time to teach and materials and someone else hosts the party.

    • Hi Catherine!

      I’m so glad you like it! We’d love to hear how your DIY party goes. 🙂

      -Kelsey with Bramble Berry

  12. What a great idea! I know what I plan on doing in the future! After I meet a local group of people. Still haven’t gotten around to meeting like minded folks since moving to Washington. 😛

    • Hi Leanna!

      I’m so happy you enjoy it! This party would be a great way to get to know some people. 🙂

      -Kelsey with Bramble Berry

  14. Hi, I was wondering can u make a tutorial on bath/shower oil. My mom brought some brought some shower oil from Avon. You know how that goes. Only sell a product monthly. The product contained oils, but it felt like water. Idk. It wasn’t too oily. I came in a spray bottle. So please…Can u make a tutorial. Thank u!
    P.S. it’s used after a shower or bath.