During the school year, my shower was my break from my nightly homework session. In an attempt to sleep as early as possible and therefore finish my work as soon as possible, I would shower furiously fast. Shampoo my hair, condition my hair, wash my body, quickly scrub down 2-3x a week, hop out, oil up, and get back to the grind.
Having come home for the summer break, I was showering a glorious two hours before my school average when I had a simple revelation. I didn’t have any buggy code or listening exam studying to rush back to. I could take my sweet time. And I did (with the water turned off, of course. No water in Cali 🙁 ).
How much more pleasant it is to scrub off excess dead skin cells and give your body a nice rub-down in slow motion. It’s like satisfying the whole days’ worth of itches.
When I get lazy or absent-minded and skip a week or two of scrubbing, without fail, I notice the familiar scales building up on my legs. Oil up as I like, the scales will stubbornly stay unless I scrub down, and Organic Bath Co’s body scrubs do the job.
The ingredients list is wonderfully simple. Sugar (fair trade) + moisturizing oils + fragrance from essential oils. It’s brilliant–the sugar (with your hands’ help of course) rub away dead skin cells while the oils (sweet almond, apricot kernel, and sunflower oil) stay behind to moisturize your gams. The sugar is pretty coarse (not to the point of causing distress or inflammation though), and if you store your scrub in the shower like I do (though do your best to not drip water inside), the texture becomes a bit clumpy–nothing a stir with the included wooden spoon (adorable, isn’t it?) or a recycled ice cream spoon doesn’t fix.
In the winter, I usually layer on an oil or butter post-shower for extra moisture, but in the summer, my scrub session also does double duty as my body moisturizing and softening session. In all the seasons, I like to scrub before shaving, as the oil leftover leaves behind a protective layer, making my shave smoother and usually less irritating. I also like to scrub before I self-tan to make sure I don’t have any dry skin patches lingering to funk up my tan.
Now whether this scrub helped me to stress less? I’d like to think somewhat so during my 5-10 minutes under the showerhead, but stress is kind of a monster. While the exact composition of the scent is under wraps, I mostly get lavender from Stress Less. Lavender is usually the essential oil suggested for calming down, and it certainly didn’t hurt. Scent-wise, I may prefer the coffee-minty Java Jolt and minty RefreshMint, the other two scents that I own–I never thought coffee and mint would be a combination, let alone thought I was a minty person.
I suppose in a way the product, being a body scrub, has helped me stress less. Sure, you could rush through the process, but I like it so much better done slow and mindfully. Now, when I start grad school in the fall? We’ll see if I will keep up my turtle pace, but it’ll depend on how buggy my code gets…
Have you tried this scrub before? What are your thoughts? If not, what is your go-to for sloughing off your scaly gams?
Ingredients: Fair Trade Certified™ Sucrose (Sugar)*, Prunus Amygdatus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil*, Prunus Armeniaca (Apricot Kernel) Oil*, Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Oil*, Essential Oil Fragrance*. *Certified Organic Ingredient
Disclaimer: While I was initially gifted two scrubs by the kind Gianne of Organic Bath, I purchased Stress Less, the scrub pictured above, myself from Organic Bath’s website. Since my purchase last fall/winter, Organic Bath updated their branding, so my tub, as cute as it is, will look a little different than its updated counterpart.
