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Treat your skin with this DIY salt scrub recipe using African Black soap from the dollar store. Handmade bath and body scrubs are a great way to soothe your dry skin, and are quick and easy to make at home using items you have in your pantry. I took a quick trip to the dollar store to find ingredients for this Black Soap, Shea Butter and Coconut Sea Salt Scrub recipe, which is a great way to cleanse, exfoliate, and moisturize your skin all at once.

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links to Amazon. If you click the links and make a purchase, I may receive a small percentage commission from the sale, at no additional cost to you. 

I got the Black Soap, Sea Salt, and the cute glass container for this project at the dollar store. You can find coconut oil at the grocery store.

What is Black Soap?

I found a bar of African Black Soap with Shea Butter at the dollar store, and according to the box, black soap is made from the nuts of the African Karite Tree. Traditionally, black soap has been used as an application for stretch marks, wrinkles, dry skin, and various other skin conditions, and shea butter has been used to penetrate, heal, and moisturize skin.

Why Exfoliate?

Exfoliation is the process of removing the dead outer skin cells from your body, which exposes the softer, healthier skin. A DIY salt scrub is an inexpensive way to give your body a spa treatment on a tiny budget. Sea Salt has beneficial minerals that are good for your skin.

DIY Salt Scrub Recipe (African Black Soap & Coconut):

• 2 cups sea salt, $1
• 1/2 cup melted coconut oil, approx $1.33 cost for recipe (Buy in bulk on Amazon: Organic Coconut Oil)
• 3+ tablespoons of grated Black Soap, $1 (or Buy on Amazon: African Black Soap)
• Bowl & Spoon, on hand
• Grater, on hand
• Container for storage, $1 or on hand

Total cost for recipe: $3.33 and up

Grate Soap:

Before we mix up this sea salt scrub, we need to prepare the black soap.

The hardest thing about this recipe is grating the soap, and that takes about 30 seconds!

Grate about 3 Tablespoons of Black Soap. 

Note: if you are making multiple batches of this recipe, you will be able to use a single bar of soap for about 4 recipes, which makes the total cost for soap in the recipe just $.25.

Mix it Up:

Next, we put all the ingredients into our mixing bowl.

Measure 2 cups of sea salt into a bowl, and add about 3 Tablespoons of grated black soap.

Add Oil:

Melt 1/2 cup of coconut oil in the microwave using a microwave-safe glass measuring cup (such as a pyrex pouring measuring cup), then add it to the soap and salt mixture. Stir all ingredients until combined.

Store it:

Measure the DIY salt scrub mixture into your chosen storage container, such as a swing-top glass container, a small apothecary jar, or even a reusable plastic storage container or zip-top bag.

I used a glass storage jar with a metal lid that I found at the dollar store.

How do you use a salt scrub?

Use a handful of salt scrub while you are showering – rub it on your elbows, knees, feet, or on any place you have dry or flaky skin. The salt will slough off dead skin cells, and gradually dissolve in the water, becoming a body polish as it dissolves. The soap will help to cleanse your skin, while the coconut oil melts into your skin and provides moisturizing and softening properties.

Salt is fairly abrasive, so if you want a milder scrub, try using sugar or baking soda in place of the salt in this recipe.

Use the scrub about once a week.

More Body Scrub Recipes:

Spiced Apple Cider Sugar Scrub Recipe

Himalayan Sea Salt & Honey Scrub Recipe

5 Minute French Vanilla Cappuccino Sugar Scrub Recipe

5 Minute Coffee & Coconut Sea Salt Scrub Recipe

Coconut & Mint Foot Scrub Recipe

The post Sea Salt Scrub Recipe: Black Soap, Shea & Coconut Oil appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

Are you Insta-ready for the latest NYC immersive experiences? New York City—and other cities—has been on fire with these trendy pop-up experiences that are bursting with color and anything but boring.

You probably saw your friends with envy-worthy photos on your timeline. You probably also felt left out because no one told you how you can attend these fun exhibits. Well, BE has you covered. Here are five pop-ups that will last until November 2018, so get your tickets and get ready to show the world how cool you are.

These interactive experiences are sure to take your Instagram page to the next level.  Take a walk through the different rooms and capture the moments of you and friends “Living your best life.”

The Dream Machine NYC

April 5 – Sept. 9

The Dream Machine, located in Brooklyn, New York, is filled with fun cool interactive rooms. Have you ever thought about taking cool pictures in a laundromat, well here’s your chance at the Dream Machine.

https://www.visitdreammachine.com/

https://www.instagram.com/inthedreammachine/?hl=en

Wonder World NYC

 Aug. 18 – Nov. 4

Wonder World is located in SoHo, New York, The pop-up gives you an Alice in Wonderland type of vibe. They have different cool rooms like the flower tunnel, bubble swimming pool, and the giant teacup, all of which are sharable to your Instagram page.

https://www.thewonderworld.space/

https://www.instagram.com/wonderworldnyc/

Candytopia NYC

 Aug. 15 – Nov. 15

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if Candyland, Willy Wonka, and the chocolate factory collided? Well, your dreams have just come true at the NYC Candytopia live interactive exhibit. It is filled with different, colorful, and tasty rooms. They even have a tsunami marshmallow room.

http://www.candytopia.com/

https://www.instagram.com/thecandytopia/

Rosé Mansion NYC

Dates: Open until Oct. 7

The Rosé Mansion has been buzzing all summer with their cute, colorful rooms and people swinging from the chandelier. If you love rosé and taking cool pictures for your Instagram, this is definitely the hot spot and it’s open every day until midnight. Did someone say ROSÉ?!?

https://www.rosewinemansion.com/about/

https://www.instagram.com/rosewinemansion/

Color Factory NYC

Aug. 20 – Sept. 30

If you’re in the mood for some Saturday night fever, you most definitely want to come and check out the latest Color Factory pop-up, also located in the SoHo area. The Color Factory collaborated with artists and creatives to bring the interactive experience to you.

https://www.colorfactory.co/

https://www.instagram.com/colorfactoryco/

The post 5 Must-Do Immersive Experiences in NYC That You Can’t Afford to Miss [2018] appeared first on Black Enterprise.

One of the most celebrated games of this year’s E3 was CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077. Well, that’s if you were one of the journalists lucky enough to see the behind-closed-doors demo of […]

The post These New Cyberpunk 2077 Concept Art Images Are Absolutely Stunning appeared first on Geek.com.

Last season on Mr. Mercedes, the AT&T original series which airs on the Audience network, Det. Bill Hodges (Brendan Gleeson) finally proved that the deranged Brady Hartsfield (Harry Treadaway) was the “Mr. Mercedes” killer.

The show, based on the first novel in the Bill Hodges trilogy by Stephen King (who is having quite a grand moment with all the adaptations of his works currently in production or already airing), returns August 22, 2018 for a second season. The season will deal with the aftermath of Hartsfield’s actions that have left him in a coma, his “friend” Lou Linklatter (Breeda Wool) recovering from being stabbed by him, and Hodges being vindicated that his determination to catch the real Mercedes killer paid off.

At San Diego Comic-Con 2018, returning showrunner Jack Bender, as well as returning cast members Wool and Justine Lupe (who plays Holly Gibney), participated in separate roundtable interviews along with two new cast additions, Jack Huston as Dr. Felix Babineau and Maximiliano Hernández as Assistant District Attorney Antonio Montez (a character created specifically for the show).

The second season encompasses parts of the remaining two novels, Finders Keepers and End of Watch, says Bender, because several returning characters don’t show up until later in the second book.

“The big trick with Season Two was Season One; we basically had the architecture of Stephen’s first book, Mr. Mercedes, which even though we changed specifics in it, we followed the arc,”
he said, adding that “in his brilliant second book, Finders Keepers, he starts with other characters, and Hodges and all our characters don’t come into the show for 250 pages.”

“We realized that wasn’t going to work,” he noted, “and we had to bring up some of the third book, End of Watch, and go our own way with some of it. Because of how Brady Hartsfield is left at the end of last season, we had to invent and figure out with Steve [King] some of the seeds that are in Stephen’s book where Brady Hartsfield is and how he is able to continue to spread his evil shit on people around him in the world. And that’s part of the challenge because it deals with the brain and the power of the brain and things we all know so little about,” he added.

A continuing challenge, according to Bender, is adapting the narration aspects of King’s work to the small screen. “In the first book, there’s a lot of Brady narrating it,” he said, adding that “King is a genius at writing twisted, wounded characters and how they see the world and what they say about it. You really get a glimpse of who this guy Brady is, you know, anti-everybody. He thinks everybody’s a low life.”

“I didn’t want to do [voiceover] narration because I felt it would be too easy,” Bender said. “So both with good writing and the brilliant performance of Harry Treadway and the use of music and a few other things, I think we were able to create that guy and tell the story of that guy without relying on” King’s narration technique.

Bender also noted that King “writes very internal books, and I imagine sometimes that’s difficult to make visual. [I]t is a challenge. But I think that we made it an asset.”

One of the themes tackled in the television adaptation in season one was that of cyberbullying, which Hartsfield sadly excels at. Because Hartsfield hates everyone and is racist on top of that, The Nerd Element asked if any of the new season would reflect the current discourse about racism in the U.S.

“When Stephen wrote it in 2009 or whatever,” Bender began, “it was based on something he heard about on the newspaper in the Midwest that didn’t even make the national news. Once it became the modus operandi for terrorists around the world after,” he continued, “my objective as a director was to make it as real as possible—not to embellish it, not to have sexy action music over the opening, not to do Sam Peckinpah slow-motion to glorify any of the action—I wanted it just to be in your face and what it would really be like to be in one of those horrific events.”

“One of the things we all talked about that is important is the repercussions of those kinds of ripples,” he said, adding that “when you do evil as Brady Hartsfield [has], it touches many, many lives and destroys many lives. [W]e felt it was important in the second season, as much as possible, to dwell on or hit some of those points of people who were affected by it.”

However, the current political climate didn’t factor into the new episodes. “On a political spectrum,” Bender said, “as much as I would love to have it stand up and wave that flag, which I think desperately needs waving, I probably can’t claim that our show does that. Maybe on the humanistic level because it is about dignity; it’s about how does everyone have dignity, how do you not take it away from somebody.”

“When Lou Linklatter gets stabbed and betrayed by her friend,” he added, Hartsfield “robs her of her life, essentially. She keeps living, but a part of her is destroyed by him and that happens all the time in our world, not just through violence.” Bender stated, though, that perhaps “on a characterological level and subtext, I hope it deals with that, but it probably on a plot level doesn’t.”

Please click the link to read excerpts of the roundtables with Lupe, Wool, Huston, and Hernández: Mr. Mercedes, Part Two

The post Mr. Mercedes Returns for Another Season of Detective Work and Mayhem (SDCC 2018) appeared first on The Nerd Element.