Make Body Sugaring Paste
Even though it’s an ancient form of hair removal, body sugaring has only recently become popular in the modern hair removal world. It looks and works a bit like waxing, but is created from much more natural, household ingredients. If you have a few simple ingredients and a stove, you can create and use body sugaring paste in the comfort of your own home.
Contents
Steps
Combining Ingredients
- Grab a saucepan. If this is your first time making a body sugaring paste, don’t use your nicest saucepan. This process can be a bit tricky, and it’s not uncommon to burn the paste, which is a nightmare to get off the pan. For safe measure, use a pan that you could stand to lose.
- As you heat your mixture it will boil and bubble up, so make sure your saucepan is big enough that it doesn’t overflow.
- Pour in two cups of white cane sugar. This is the simple white sugar that you probably have around the house, or can find at any grocery store. It’s important to use white sugar for this recipe. Color changes are the main indicator used to determine if your paste is finished, so white sugar should be the base of your paste.
- If you want to make a smaller recipe, simply halve all of the ingredients. However, body sugaring paste can easily be put into a container and saved, so don’t worry if you create way more than you need for one session.
- Add 1/4 cup lemon juice and 1/4 cup water. You can squeeze the juice from fresh lemons or buy lemon juice from the store, as long as you get a full fourth of a cup. Pour it into the cane sugar, and then add a quarter cup of water. Using a spatula or large spoon, mix the three ingredients together until thoroughly blended.
Heating Your Mixture
- Put your stovetop on low. It is important that your mixture gets to a boil, but try to raise the temperature slowly and carefully so that the paste doesn’t burn. Don’t step away from the stove, especially if this is your first time making body sugaring paste. It can be tricky to get it hot enough without it burning, so you need to be vigilant. It will be obvious if it starts burning, because it will turn a very dark, almost black color.
- Stir the mixture continuously until it's boiling. Don’t turn the heat on and leave your pot unattended. Keep stirring it over and over again, making sure that it never sticks to the pot. As your mixture reaches a boil, it will begin to thin out. When you see it start to bubble it’s almost there, but make sure you allow it to get to a full-fledged boil.
- If you own a candy thermometer, use it here. Your mixture should reach 250 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the "hardball" candy stage.
- Put a few droplets of the mixture on something white. You can use a plate, a napkin, a piece of paper, or anything. This will allow you to examine the color. Your finished product should be a golden color. When your mixture has reached a boil and is that color, turn your heat off. Make sure you’re still stirring.
- Use a microwave if that's all you have. Instead of the ingredients outlined previously, you will be using one cup of sugar, 1/4 a cup of honey, and juice from half of a lemon (about two tablespoons). Combine these ingredients in a microwave-safe bowl and stir until everything is blended. Then, heat your mixture in the microwave for two minutes.
- Don't go anywhere as it heats. You need to stir your mixture every 20 to 30 seconds.
- After two minutes are up, let it cool off a bit to use or store.
Storing Your Paste
- Allow the mixture to cool off. This is especially important if you are going to use some of it right now for hair removal. You want it to be warm, but not hot, or else you can seriously burn yourself. You can learn how to use your finished body sugaring paste Use-Body-Sugaring-Paste Even if you aren’t going to use it immediately, let it cool off before you transfer it into a container.
- Pour your paste into a microwaveable-safe container. It’s important that the container can be heated, because you will want to give your paste a quick reheat before using it in the future. Store your body sugaring paste at room temperature. This will keep it from thickening, and make reheating an easier process.
- If you don’t have a microwave to use, you can always run your container under hot water to heat the paste.
- Reheat your body paste before you use it. If it thickens up a bit, add a few drops of water before placing it in the microwave. Heat your paste so that it’s warm, not hot. Again, it is easy to burn yourself with this so take extra precautions. When you reheat the paste, it will thicken a bit.
Tips
- Getting the right consistency is extremely important. Be sure to follow the recipe. If the mixture sticks to your skin at room temperature, or if the mixture is too hard to spread at body temperature, it’s not correct. Try again and you'll get it right. The color is a very good indicator of when you need to stop boiling.
Warnings
- The paste is an extraordinarily messy substance, and is very hard to clean up. For cleaning pots, heat them over the burner until the excess paste is liquid, then pour it into a garbage pail. Added Edit: For a thin coating of sugar paste still in the pan, simply boil a kettle or two of water and rinse them out with that. For larger quantities of leftover sugar mix still in the pan, fill with water to the appropriate level and bring to the boil. The sugar mix will dissolve in the hot water, which can be poured away down a suitably tough drain or toilet. The pouring of large quantities of hot syrupy liquid down a sink is not recommended. Any leftover paste clinging to the edges can be dealt with as suggested with just a kettle of hot water. Please be careful handling heavy pans with hot syrupy liquid in them.
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