Happy Monday everyone! Today’s post is all about making amazingly easy and effective rice powder scrubs. Turns out, rice is useful for many other thing aside from eating!

I was first introduced to rice powder via Dermalogica’s Daily Microfoliant, but at $55 for 2.6oz it’s an expensive habit. There’s also the perpetual issue of humidity ruining the powder over time (funky smells never a welcome surprise).

Luckily, rice powder scrubs are super easy and cheap to make at home. Fresh batches means more rice enzymes available to do good things for your skin.

First, make your rice powder (or buy rice flour from Amazon, Bob’s Red Mill sells a pack of 4 for about $11). Determine how much rice powder you would like to make (1 cup of rice will make 1 cup of powder). For reference my Dermologica microfoliant was 2.6 oz which is approx. 1/3 cup. It lasted over 1/2 a year for me as a face exfoliant.

Step #1: Put your rice in the freezer for at least 30 minutes. This will help keep the rice from overheating and denaturing the rice enzymes when you grind it.

You can skip this step if you’re going to use a mortar and pestle the old fashioned way. Highly recommended though if you’re using a blender.

Step #2: Grind that rice into powder!

Using my trusty blender, I first pulsed 2-3 times, until the rice started looking more powder like. Then I went from medium to high for about 30 secs. I found the high setting was necessary to get the rice to a fine powder but it also heats up the rice very quickly. So take this last step slow, especially as your blender may have different settings. You can always blend more!

Pour the rice powder into a container of your choice.

You can use your rice powder as is – just pour some out into your palm and mix with water. Or you can mix the powder with some other ingredients to make scrubs like the following:

• Natural body scrub:

Mix together 1/2 cup rice powder, 1/4 cup sugar and 4tbsp (or a few big dollops) honey for a gentle and natural body scrub. It might look a little chunky in the bowl but it’ll smooth out when you use it.

• Yogurt face scrub:

Mix equal parts (non-flavoured) yogurt and rice powder for a gentle exfoliation mask. You can also substitute milk for yogurt. I used greek yogurt here so it’s a little thick.

(As someone with oily/combination skin I especially love this scrub which also doubles as a mask!)

• Clarifying scrub:

Mix 2 tbsp rice powder, 1 tbsp turmeric, and 2 tbsp lemon juice to make a wonderfully invigorating and clarifying scrub. You can add a little water to thin the paste out if you wish. You can also adjust the lemon juice according to your skin sensitivity.

Turmeric has long been a beauty secret in Southeast Asia. One of its active ingredients, curcumin is a powerful antioxidant. It can also leave a very strong yellow stain so be careful – don’t leave it on your face too long if you don’t want that look! I use this in the shower before washing my hair to be sure all the turmeric is rinsed out. Then I thoroughly dry (esp behind the ears!) with an old towel I don’t mind getting stained because that’s gonna happen no matter what.

Happy scrubbing!