Making Safe Products & Why My Sugar Scrubs Don't Cost $6.00

Some portions of this were plagiarized from my earlier Facebook post.

Every once in a while I stalk business on Facebook that make bath and body products or post recipes for them... I don't know why I am surprised at some of the stuff I see in a sugar scrub, or worse, what I don't. I realized that sugar scrub post are used to promote all kinds of pages. Real Estate agents, Coconut manufactures, Spice companies..., The Sugar Scrub is used to promote their pages and keep it relevant in their followers feed. Because after all, it's harmless right?

Three ingredients; Sugar, Baby Oil /Coconut Oil and 10 drops of X oil and a mason jar will get you several thousand shares. Add fresh rose petals/pineapple/ apples or ginger to it and you have a real AMAZEBALLS / "girls wine night" activity winner! Even an apple grower posted a sugar scrub recipe! DIY recipes using food items are a recipe for disaster and not safe beyond a one time use unless you really know what you are doing and use a preservative.

Why My Scrub is 24.00 a Jar

I can not sell my jar of scrub for $3.00-$6.00. I don't put my product in a mason jar with a bow or twine and a flower or in a cellophane bag. Just my PET (Cosmetic Grade) jars cost over a dollar each and the label without my obsessing over it for hours is about .50 cents each not including the ink. 

I don't use just coconut oil as most do, frankly its not all that great in the world of oils and solid butters, and you wont find it in my products. 

I spend hours on my feet creating but even before that starts, hours, days and weeks go into researching and learning about ingredients that I use in my products.  My feet swell from sitting too long, by back aches from standing too long and I put off taking a potty break or even eating.  Before you know it, its nearly dark. Crap, I forgot to take out anything for dinner, and my poor doggie never even got breakfast.  

To top it off,  (As I hear from so many crafters of Bath & Body Products),  The customer takes a look at the jar and says,  "Oh I can make that at home...."  Yeah,  You get right to it princess... But in reality  she will buy Junk from some Bath and Body Store in the mall, or Pay 65.00 for a scrub made with mineral oil and Fragrance. I found one from Sephora for 50.00 and the number one ingredient? Propylene Glycol.  It had poor reviews and many commented on the "Chemical Smell"  But people buy it for that kind of money and never bat a false eyelash.

I am happy with my ingredient deck, and the infusions I create myself to make my products even better.  I am not a Kardashian that can throw money at a Cosmetic Manufacture and say, "Make me something that smells good, that will make me money. 

If I gave you my recipe and you went out and purchased all the ingredients, in the smallest available quantities you would spend no less than 100.00 bucks and I guarantee it would be nothing like mine. We each add our own little bit of love, science and technique into our work that can not be duplicated.

Can you sometime get my scrubs on sale? Sure you can. I sell them 50% off twice a year.  For 1 day only.  But You gotta Be paying Attention!

Just a few of my Ingredients & Cost Include:

Mango Butter 42.00 per pound

Shea Butter 15.00 per Pound

Kukui Nut Oil 88.00 per gallon

Hemp Seed Oil 108.00 per gallon

Pet Jar with Lid, Interior and exterior seal, Label and Ink Approx 1.50 ea.
Essential Oil: 8.50 - 25.00+ per ounce

I spend a lot of time sourcing ingredients,  First Quality, then price. 

Most of my scrubs contain about a dozen ingredients or more. And let us not forget about shipping, because this stuff isn't from Walmart.

Do Ingredients Matter in a Scrub?

Yes ingredients matter!  Each oil or solid butter used provides a specific benefit to the skin. Not all oils are the same, they are very different. I can create a scrub specific for a customers skin type, age or condition. I spend a good deal of time studying ingredients, how they work and benefit each specific skin type, such as acne prone, aging, dry, oily and so on.

Afraid of Preservatives, but what about Staphylococcus aureus? 

Do I preserve my scrubs?  You bet I do! I use some wonderful ingredients like botanical powders, Aloe Vera and water.  These must have a preservative in them! Making sure these ingredients are properly preserved takes some skill and caution. Working out a formula that is effective and luxurious takes a lot of time, trial and error. My scrubs that contain these types of ingredients contain a broad spectrum preservative that protects against mold and bacteria from growing in the beautiful scrub that you just paid me 24.00 for. Not using a preservative in this type of product could cause dermatitis at the least, or in worse case scenarios, blood born infections that could be deadly. Read More Here The amount of preservative required for my products is  0.1 to 0.5% of the total formulation of the liquid phase of my product. 

There are lots of ways to kick out preservatives and unnecessary harmful or synthetic ingredients from your life, but don't compromise your health by skipping out on them in your bath and body products.

If you make a DIY scrub from recipes coming from Pinterest or Crunchy Mommy Blogs I would use caution.  Using food or Botanicals, including Green Tea or Aloe Vera requires a preservative, a Real One.  You can read more on that here.  Using this type of scrub should be a one time use only, then toss it.  It WILL NOT KEEP!  Would you eat a salad that sat in your refrigerator for weeks?  No?  Then why would you rub it all over your body?

The Mommy Blog Trend VS Science

We live in a world where the Crunchy Mommy Blogger has a lot of power and her followers believe that what ever she puts into words is the gospel truth and must be safe because its on the Internet and she has a half a million viewers a day. Now there are some excellent Mommy Blogs so don't get me wrong! But these mommy blog topics move like wild fire and get regurgitated my millions of viewers a day, regardless if they are factual, science based or tested and they frequently use old, outdated science if they provide any at all, or worse quote the EWG.   Make Sure to Click the links in this section about Mommy Blogs!

As the purveyors of these products, the ones that spend the time formulating, reading, learning and experimenting we don't have the time to write blogs that would oppose them. And on the occasion a good article does arise, they do not get widely shared among our peers or customer base.

Your Friends, family and co workers will share a recipe, meme about last weekend,  the latest gossip and what they had for dinner.  They will share the latest "BAD CHEMICAL" just off a headline with out ever doing their own research.  Those will get shared over and over. In our small world of cottage industry purveyors of beautiful things, I guess we will just keep plugging along just because we love it and will cater to the small percentage of the communities that we service out of a passion for the craft.

Bottom Line. Until we make time to educate the public on the benefits of good ingredients, the science behind those "big scary words" and the importance of preservatives, and safe products, we may lose this battle.

In the end,  I hope you chose your products wisely or lift up small business that use safe and ethical business practices to bring you products that we pour our souls into.

Stay Beautiful~