Nag Champa Brown Sugar Body Scrub

If you don't know of Nag Champa by name, you'd likely know it by smell.  This traditional Indian spiced incense is blessed with the essence of sandalwood, plumeria flower, and other musky sweet oils that are hard to pinpoint and together create a heavenly fragrance.

This beautiful body scrub will leave you moisturized, exfoliated and smelling like an ashram!  The oils are quite fragrant at first, then mellow and blend with your own scent to create a truly unique perfume. 

You can purchase Nag Champa oils online, which are already blended for you.  I chose to create my own mixture.  You may choose to start with half of each of the essential oils in this recipe, and increase the amount of those you love the most.  You can then design your body scrub to fit you or the one you love: musky, spicy, earthy, fruity, sweet or floral...

Nag Champa Brown Sugar Body Scrub
Fills about 4 half-pint jars. Shelf life 4 months at room temperature, or one year in the fridge.

1 cup grapeseed oil or other clear flavorless oil
1/2 cup honey
1/4 teaspoon sandalwood essential oil
1/2-3/4 teaspoon plumeria flower essential oil (frangipani)
1/8 teaspoon lemon or orange essential oil
1/8 teaspoon amber oil
1/16 teaspoon (several drops) patchouli essential oil
1 1/2 cups packed light or dark brown sugar (I used dark)
2 1/2 to 3 cups sea salt
3 teaspoons cardamom seeds or course ground cardamom


Whisk the oil, honey and essential oils together in a bowl. Mix in the brown sugar, salt and cardamom. This is easiest to do with your hands. Wear gloves if you have very sensitive skin.

Continue to mix until the oil is mostly absorbed into the grains. It will be very thick and mass together with a bit of oil seeping out. If it's not coming together after several minutes, add extra salt or sugar in quarter cup increments until it's a gritty oily paste.

Scoop the scrub into little jars with holes large enough to dig the product out by hand. Wipe off the top of the jar before lidding as the salt can rust the metal lid.  (I actually keep mine in a honey pot with a spoon, and that works very well as long as I don't let water in from the shower.)

To use, scoop a tablespoon of the scrub into damp hands and massage between your hands until you feel a gritty paste. Scrub your skin in a circular motion until the crystals dissolve, then rinse.

Enjoy!