diy: gardening hand scrub

Oh my gosh I've been so busy lately! There's just so much to do in the summer (especially since we only see maybe, if we're lucky four months of it).

So if you're like me, you're probably out there, too. Mowing and weeding and digging and planting and generally getting downright dirty.

I had seen a lot of scrub tutorials, face and body mostly, so I went on a little search for a hand scrub. I guess a gardening hand scrub, as I'm calling it here, but really you can use this for any time your hands just need a little extra cleaning.

On the whole, most "gardening" hand scrubs I read about had sugar mixed with hand-friendly dish soap. And that's totally fine. If you like washing your hands with dish soap. I know, I know. It's Palmolive or hand-softening or what have you, but I just don't like those (and don't think I haven't tried them, either. I felt like they neither softened my hands nor cleaned my dishes).

So mine's probably a bit of a cop out cuz I kept the sugar but used a favourite hand soap instead. It doesn't really matter what soap you use, the method's still the same.

I made enough to fill this jar and I've already used a lot of it! It scrubs really well and surprisingly leaves my hands feeling a lot softer and less tight and dry than they usually are. I don't know if the sugar has anything to do with it, but I do know that this is one of the better uses for sugar!

So here's how you do it:

Grab the jar you want to use (honestly, I've been scooping a bit out with my fingers, so choose something you can dip into.) and fill it 3/4 of the way full of sugar. That's just about two finger widths from the top of your vessel (or consult a measuring cup to get a better idea if you need to, but it's not an exact science). Pour the sugar into a bowl and slowly add liquid soap and mix until you get a medium-thick paste. You don't want it to be all sugar and you don't want it to be all soap (initial experiments had too much soap and the sugar ended up dissolving into the soap so I really just made myself some sweet soap). It shouldn't be drippy, let's put it that way.

And boom! You're done! That was easy, hey?

If you're going to a BBQ or a picnic party, I think this would make a pretty good hostess gift, as well. Include a little spoon and maybe some gardening gloves and you're all set.