Question about homemade body scrubs

[to-my-wife.livejournal.com]

I made my first homemade salt scrub last night - 0.5 cup sweet almond oil, 1.5 cup sea salt, 10 drops orange essential oil - and I love it! It sorted out my boyfriend's dry feet in a flash.

I want to make a brown sugar scrub today, but I've run out of sweet almond oil. Google tells me that some people use normal vegetable oil in their scrubs, and I was wondering if there's any concensus here as to whether that works okay. I'm imagining sweet almond oil is recommended because it carries the essential oil better than regular vegetable oil does?

Also, does anyone who makes their own scrubs add vitamin E oil to help preserve them? How long do your sugar scrubs last, whether you add the vitamin E or not? I'm thinking of making some for a gift and don't have time to run an experiment with shelf life as the occasion is next week!

Thanks so much for your help guys!