A natural mango lip scrub to put an end to winter’s chapped lips (in a lesson from India)

Amanda’s note: I always love opening up my emails from Ramya because I get to read great new content like this one. Ramya writes from a coconut farm in India where she shares traditional solutions to daily problems and some of her best kitchen techniques. Using fresh mango to fight the lingering chapped lips from winter is one of those. Find Ramya Venkateshwaran at her website WildTurmeric.net.)

~~~Since I finished making a huge batch of homemade coconut oil, I am welcomed with the fresh smell of homemade coconut oil whenever I go into the pantry. Now that I have plenty of coconut oil at home, I usually end up trying many homemade treatments using fresh coconut oil during this time of the year. The first treatment I tried this season was a mango lip scrub. One big problem during winter months is chapped, dry lips. How I hate chapped lips! It makes eating spicy foods very hard and all Indian foods are quite spicy. Though daily use of homemade lip gloss will help, pairing it up with lip scrub is the best way to prevent chapped lips.

Last time I went to our local mall, I was looking for a lip scrub and everything looked inviting in pretty small bottles. But the prices were very expensive and I made a mental calculation of how much it would cost if I made the same thing at home. It didn’t even amount to 1/4th of the price of the store bought scrub. I decided to make my own.

The only problem I faced while making the scrub was deciding on the fruit for the scrub. I had already decided to use fruit pulp as I wanted my scrub to have a beautiful natural color. Finally I settled on mangoes as I just received a huge basket of organic mangoes from the farm. This scrub smells amazing and looks stunningly beautiful and make wonderful gifts.

After making the scrub, I couldn’t resist and used it immediately. Since I ground everything in a mortar and pestle, the mixture wasn’t too grainy and I had to control myself from licking the scrub as it smelled wonderful. The mango butter, mango pulp, and the coconut oil in the scrub left my lips moisturized, sugar gently exfoliated the dead skin and the pure vanilla made it smell so very good.

Mango butter can be substituted with cocoa butter or shea butter. Mango butter is obtained from the seed kernel of mango tree. It is similar to cocoa butter and shea butter and has a sweet smell. Mango butter is a natural emollient which makes it a perfect ingredient for treating chapped lips. Mango butter is hard at room temperature and so I prefer to melt it along with coconut oil before making the scrub. I always prefer to grind the sugar a bit in a mortar and pestle else I find it is too abrasive.

Mango Lip Scrub Ingredients

• 4 tablespoon of raw sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon melted mango butter
• 1/2 tablespoon of coconut oil
• 5 drops of pure vanilla
• 1/2 tablespoon of fresh mango pulp

Mango Lip Scrub Steps

1. Melt the mango butter and coconut oil over a double boiler or in a microwave.
2. Add the melted oils to the sugar and grind it in a mortar and pestle until the sugar is ground up little.
3. Add pure vanilla and the mango pulp and mix well. Your scrub is ready to be bottled!

Notes:

• Make sure to use fresh mango pulp not the juice.
• Don’t grind the sugar too finely
• If the scrub turns a bit runny, add a bit more sugar
• Store it in the refrigerator (though I have kept it for days unrefrigerated with no signs of spoiling).

To use the scrub, take a little bit of the scrub and gently scrub your lips, wash, pat dry and apply lip gloss. Once you start using homemade lip scrubs, you will not stop. Though you can use it often, I prefer using lip scrubs weekly twice or three times. Since this lip scrub has fresh mango, it is best to store it in the refrigerator. It will last for about a week in the refrigerator.

How to make your own coconut oil? I made a video for you. Subscribe the the channel for more natural health and beauty tutorials.