When you think face scrub, you probably think of something that’s very oil-based. Don’t get me wrong, these types of scrubs can be absolutely amazing.
I’ve made lots of natural homemade face scrubs, made with natural oils. But if you have oily or sensitive skin, many of these aren’t your best options.
Introduction
If you do have oily skin, excessively oily exfoliants can be a nightmare. They’ll often leave your skin feeling greasy, and you end up washing it all away. That seems a little counterproductive to me.
That’s why I’ve formulated something that would be milder and more suitable for someone with either sensitive or oily skin types. It’s my brand-new homemade green tea face gel, and we just love it.
Formulated with excellent ingredients, this scrub will leave your skin feeling soft, smooth, and ready for the day. I’ve always thought starting the day with a cup of tea is the best thing. So I thought I’d give my skin the same treatment!
Why Make A Gel Scrub?
Gels are a lot lighter than their oil-based cousins. They provide good moisturization without any of the heavy, greasiness of oil-based variants. Furthermore, many oil-based scrubs contain a significant amount of cosmetic butter – something that is not recommended for oily skin types.
Furthermore, this is your chance to use all of those lovely water-based ingredients. Many types of botanicals and functional ingredients are water soluble only. Glycerites, D Panthenol powder, silk peptide, hyaluronic acid, tinctures, and more can all be used here.
However, this also means we can’t just add essential oils without extra steps. Essential oils are oils after all. If you really want to do this, you will need to solubilize them. This will require a solubilizer, such as Symbiosolv.
If you want to impart a fragrance to your gel scrub more easily, just swap out the distilled water for hydrosol/floral water.
What’s In This Face Scrub
The Power of Matcha Powder
Matcha is, for all intents and purposes, green tea! However, there’s more to it than that. It’s different from regular tea, because it doesn’t need to be ‘steeped’, and can be mixed into drinks and consumed immediately.
Furthermore, they are made from specially selected, shade grown tea leaves… It’s not your ordinary green tea! It’s become amazingly popular over the last 10 years. You’ve probably tried it at Starbucks.
Despite not being called green tea, it carries with it many amazing benefits of it. It’s fantastic for fighting off the first signs of aging, increasing circulation to the skin, and stimulating the production of collagen. It also helps to restore lost elasticity. As much as oily skin takes longer to age, anti-aging is most definitely a concern for all skin types.
Furthermore, it’s also great for sensitive skin. It actually helps to soothe patches of irritation and brings down puffiness.
There’s also some evidence to suggest it has decent antibacterial action, too. It’s a wonderful ingredient, and I actually love the deep green color it provides to this product. It just screams natural to me.
If you can’t get hold of matcha powder, or find it’s a little too expensive in your region – just forget about it and swap your distilled water for a DIY green tea infusion. You’ll get many of the same benefits, but it won’t have that swampy green color that I love so much. Or, keep your distilled water and just use a water-soluble green tea extract.
Our Excellent Exfoliants
We’re only using the one exfoliant in this recipe because we wanted it to be suitable for even the most sensitive skin. The exfoliant we’re using today is bamboo powder.
Providing you’re using ultra-fine bamboo powder, intended for use on the face, this is an excellent ingredient for gentle exfoliation. Make sure to check with your supplier to ensure it is a microdermabrasion-grade exfoliant, otherwise it could be a little too coarse for the face.
My supplier tells me this stuff is okay to use every day, but I’m not 100% sure of this. I would recommend using it no more than 3 times a week. If you find it too irritating, use it no more than once a week – or consider dropping the amount of bamboo powder to 2.5g, and upping the distilled water to 83g to compensate.
If you can’t get hold of this ingredient, I would use jojoba grains/seeds/beads that are intended for use on the face. If you are ever unsure about the quality of your exfoliants, as well as any of your cosmetics ingredients, always contact the supplier directly.
Ok, let’s make a green tea face scrub
Green Tea Face Scrub Recipe
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Equipment
Ingredients
- 80 g Distilled Water (80%)
- 10 g Glycerine (10%)
- 5.5 g Bamboo Powder (5.5%)
- 2 g Macha Powder (2% (green tea)
- 1.5 g Xanthan Gum (1.5%)
- 1 g Preservative (1%) (Water Soluble )
- 1 4 oz PET Plastic Bottle (100g approx.)
Video
Instructions
- Place the glycerin and xanthan gum into a beaker. Mix the xanthan gum and glycerin together, ensuring they are well combined and have no lumps, then Set aside.10 g Glycerine, 1.5 g Xanthan Gum
- In a separate beaker, dissolve the Matcha powder into the distilled water.80 g Distilled Water, 2 g Macha Powder
- Now it's time to add our preservative. Stir this into our matcha powder and distilled water, making sure it is completely combined into the gel.1 g Preservative
- Once dissolved, pour around a ¼ of the water and matcha powder into the beaker holding the xanthan gum mixture. Stir briskly. As the gel begins to thicken, add another ¼ of the matcha water, and continue until it has all been added.
- The gel needs to be thick enough to suspend the bamboo. If it's not quite there, try stirring for a while longer. Sometimes the xanthan gum can take a few hours to completely reach its final thickness, so if it's still looking a bit thin, leave it alone for a few hours to thicken before adding the bamboo.5.5 g Bamboo Powder
- When the gel feels and looks thick enough to suspend the bamboo, go ahead and stir it in.
- We can now transfer the finished gel to a bottle. If the mouth is too narrow, you can use a funnel.1 4 oz PET Plastic Bottle
Notes
- As this is a water-based product we need to use a preservative. We’re using lots of lovely ingredients that bacteria and mold love to feast on, then giving them an endless supply of water too. Without a preservative, you expose yourself to a whole host of nasty bacterial and fungal infections.
- This should be used no more than 3 times per week.
Final Thoughts
This green tea face scrub is superb in all categories. It does its job, is very gentle on the skin and nourishes the skin, and leaves it feeling ultra soft. Just don’t let the color put you off. It may look like swamp water, but it’s fabulous for your skin!
If you’ve enjoyed reading this as much as I have loved writing it, then let me know in the comments below. I’m also happy to answer queries and questions. We can troubleshoot these things together!
