5 DIY Foot Scrubs For Perky Feet

Feet need love and attention too. Like the rest of your body, they’re covered in skin and that skin needs maintenance to age well. An important part of that maintenance is exfoliation. Regular DIY foot scrubs are an excellent and EASY addition to your routine. They’re also the kind of treatment that give you a sense of immediate results, which is always nice!

Below are 5 different and simple recipes for DIY foot scrubs you can choose from, depending on your personal needs.

But first, here are some basic guidelines for any successful DIY foot scrub routine.

Related content: 4 DIY Foot Soak Recipes For Your Every Need!

GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR DIY FOOT SCRUBS

Storage

You can mix and store the dry ingredients of your DIY foot scrubs beforehand for as long as you want. You can even add in the oils and keep that mixture for months. However, any water-based ingredient, such as milk, cream, juice, etc., should only be added to the amount of mixture you’re going to use, right before you use it.

This is because water-based ingredients will spoil easily, so they’ll only keep for up to a few days in the fridge. The exception to this would be vinegar, which in itself can act as a preservative.

However, vinegar is also very acidic, so it will interact with the other ingredients, with less predictable results. So the best thing is to add the vinegar right before using the scrub as well.

Pre-Soak

You can use the scrubs directly on dry feet. But the best way to ensure it can remove the most dead skin as possible is to soak your feet first for about 10 minutes.

You can soak them in plain warm water, or add a cup of vinegar or milk to that. You can also make it into a more spa-like experience and try one of these foot soak recipes.

Foot soaks will soften the outer layer of the skin, making it easier to remove by the scrubbing action of the foot scrub.

Application

When applying these DIY foot scrubs, take your time scrubbing in circular motions – for about 5 minutes.

You can leave the mixture on for another 5 or 10 minutes. This allows for the different properties of the ingredients to act on the skin a bit longer.

So, things like the AHAs of milk and vinegar, or the antifungal/antimicrobial/antibacterial actions of essential oils, herbs, honey, clay, salts, etc. Or even the more skin softening and moisturizing effects of oils, honey, or oats. You get the picture.

DIY foot scrubs always have a double action. There’s the physical exfoliation that scrapes off dead skin, and the actual skin soothing or nourishing properties of the ingredients. Both help to soften the skin.

Related content: How To Exfoliate Your Skin: Basics + DIY Exfoliation 101

After the scrub

The best way to remove your DIY foot scrubs is to wash your feet again in the pre-soak mixture, then pat dry.

You can also just rinse your feet in the shower. However, keep in mind that some ingredients might clog your shower drain. For instance, things like oat flour and coffee grinds.

The second step after all that skin sloughing and skin resurfacing is to moisturize and protect the fresh skin. That’s best achieved with a good moisturizer that’ll lock in the moisture and help smooth the groves and cracks. Body butters are a great moisturizer for feet!

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When to scrub and how often

DIY Foot scrubs and foot soaks are always best done at night. Not only will you be getting a nice massage after a whole day on your feet, but you’ll also have the chance to allow the moisturizer you apply after it to do its job properly, during the several hours of sleep.

Just put on a pair of comfortable socks and let your muscles and skin go through the necessary repairs.

Just like any exfoliation routine – don’t overdo it! Once or twice a week should be more than enough to keep the skin fresh and healthy.

5 DIY FOOT SCRUBS

1 – Simple DIY Foot Scrub

• ½ cup cane sugar OR ½ cup chickpea flour
• 2 TB lemon juice OR vinegar
• Enough carrier oil to make a paste

This is a basic exfoliating scrub, not too harsh but not too soft, that mixes that physical exfoliation with a chemical one.

The cane sugar granules are on the harder side, though not as hard as sea or Himalayan salt, so they’ll provide a good scrubbing action.

The same is true for the chickpea flour – it’s more exfoliating than oats or almond flour, but it also possesses a natural saponin content (like oats) that effectively cleans the skin as well.

The lemon juice and the vinegar are acids that will help loosen the “glue” that keeps dead skin cells together.

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2 – Heavy duty DIY Foot Scrub (cracked & callused feet)

• ½ cup sea OR Himalayan salt (these are coarser and harder to dissolve)
• 2 TB vinegar
• Enough olive oil to make a paste

For really cracked and callused feet, choose the hardier exfoliating granules of sea or Himalayan salt, over the magnesium or Epson salts.

The vinegar will add a chemical exfoliating layer, since it’s an acid (also an AHA).

Olive oil is very high in oleic acid, which acts as an enhancer of the skin’s absorption ability. This will further help your skin to absorb the nourishing ingredients in the moisturizer you apply after the scrub. Of course, it also packs an amazing antioxidant and anti-inflammatory punch.

Related content: 7 Natural (& Versatile) Natural Ingredients For Skin & Hair

3 – Anti-fungal DIY Foot Scrub

• ½ cup sea salt
• 1 TB green clay
• 2 TB baking soda
• 1 tsp powdered clove
• 1 tsp powdered cinnamon
• Enough olive or coconut oil to make a paste

Any type of salt (regular salt, magnesium and Epson salts, or baking soda) possesses antimicrobial and antibacterial properties. That’s why salts have been used to preserve food for thousands of years.

Clays are also known for their antibacterial properties and they help to draw out impurities from the skin.

Both clove and cinnamon (especially clove) are powerful antimicrobials, antibacterials, and antifungals, so they’d be a great addition to any anti-fungal DIY foot scrubs.

4 – Nourishing DIY Foot Scrub

• ½ cup brown sugar (softer and easier to dissolve than cane sugar) OR ½ cup oat flour
• 1 TB honey
• Enough cream or double cream (the dairy products) to make a paste

This is a more delicate type of scrub, so you want to use softer exfoliating granules, like brown sugar or oat flour.

Both are very moisturizing to the skin – oats in particular is very skin-soothing and skin-softening. (*) Honey is a humectant (actually draws moisture to the skin), as well as an antibacterial and skin healing ingredient. (*)

By using cream, or double cream, you’re not only adding another skin-softening ingredient, due to its natural fat content, but you’re also adding a gentle chemical exfoliator to the mix. This is lactic acid, of course, another AHA that’s present in all milk-based products.

Related content: The Best Ingredients For Tightening Skin Naturally

5 – Cooling & Soothing DIY Foot Scrub

• ½ cup discarded coffee grinds OR ½ cup salt (any kind)
• 2 TB lemon juice
• 2 tsp peppermint or eucalyptus leaf powder
• Enough coconut oil to make a paste

Choose either discarded coffee grinds or any kind of salt as your base physical exfoliating granules (or mix both). Both have an anti-inflammatory action on the skin. (*)

Peppermint and eucalyptus are very cooling and also anti-inflammatory. Peppermint has a high amount of menthol (about 40%) and eucalyptus has large amounts of α-pinene. Both are very effective anti-inflammatories (among other things).

In Ayurveda, lemon juice and coconut oil have been used for centuries to cool the body down in “heated” skin conditions, like inflammation and rashes.

In fact, lemon juice and coconut oil are a popular Ayurvedic treatment for hair loss and thinning, which are considered a Pitta (hot and humid) unbalance in the body.

Related content: The Best Natural Hair Loss Treatments (by hair loss type!)

DIY foot scrubs without essential oils?

You can use essential oils in all of these DIY foot scrubs. In fact you can add them to pretty much every DIY foot scrub recipe you find online, since many will use some kind of oil-based ingredient to turn the scrub into a paste.

Essential oils are oil-based and do not mix well in water. If you want to use essential oils, just add 2-3 drops per handful of scrub, before applying it.

However, I personally find it a bit of a waste to add essential oils to any mixture that’s not going to be left on my skin, i.e., that is meant to be washed off. Essential oils pack a pretty concentrated medicinal punch and they usually constitute a very tiny amount of that plant’s makeup.

That means that you usually need huge amounts of the herb just to get the 10 ml bottle’s worth of essential oil you buy at the store. Depending on the herb and the amounts needed to extract the essential oils, the price tag will go up or down. That’s why you pay 6-10 dollars for rosemary essential oil and as much as 25-30 (and more!) for pure rose essential oil.

So for foot scrubs I prefer to just add powdered herbs to the dry ingredient base mixture and massage them in. The plant’s properties will still be there (though not as potent) and the aromatherapy value of breathing the scents in will still apply. Also, it’s better for the wallet!

A note on carrier oils

Although some of these recipes specify the oils to add, you can actually use any carrier oil you have on hand.

As a general rule, it’s best to stick to those oils that are not so easily absorbed into the skin, since you’re meant to be massaging (scrubbing) for several minutes.

It’ll be easier to work with the mixture if the exfoliating granules stick to your feet and don’t just crumble off immediately, because the oil has “dried out”.

So use oils like olive oil, coconut oil, sesame oil – you know, the thickish kind of oils. Melted body butters are also a good choice.

DIY foot scrubs don’t have to get fancy or complicated at all.

You just need physical exfoliating granules (sugars, salts, flours, powdered herbs, coffee grinds, what-have-you) and enough liquid or oil to turn them into a paste you can work with.

Since the skin is a lot tougher on your feet than on other parts of your body, you really don’t have to worry so much. So play around with the ingredients and see what works best for you and your routine!

Let me know in the comments if anything isn’t clear, or if you have any DIY foot scrubs you swear by!