Self Care Series #4
Wake up your skin with this DIY beauty hack
Wake up your skin with this DIY beauty hack
Once you've gulped down your morning coffee (or two or three) don’t throw away those grounds – just use them as a free, all-natural body scrub!
Coffee grounds make an excellent exfoliator. Gently scrubbing with them helps maintain your skin's pH balance, keep it soft and healthy.
They're also literally soaked with caffeic acid (well-known for its antioxidant and antimicrobial properties, which is why it's so often found in skin care formulations).
Coffee's nutrients and compounds are great for scalp and hair, too. Studies suggest caffeine helps stimulate blood vessels, making it a great daily massage treatment to try for thinning hair.
Use the grounds alone, or you can "superboost" it by adding in your favorite cleanser or exfoliator.
Here are a few of the ways that I like to mix my own products into leftover coffee grounds. (I pondered making a coffee scrub, but unless its a special blend I do find it's best to get this stuff from the source!)
Would love to know what you think!
❤︎ Anna
BODY
A good coffee scrub is the easiest and quickest way to brighten and wake up tired skin (brush it on dry pre-shower for extra sloughing).
I like to mix coffee grounds with my Ginger Coconut Sugar scrub. The smell of mixed coffee, sugar, coconut and ginger is smokey and heavenly. After shower, while my skin is still damp and tingling, I apply my Juniper Body Oil to seal in the moisture.
I do this regularly, my skin stays soft, smooth, toned and less dimply looking.
FACE
Coffee grounds and sugar tend to be a bit large and coarse so to use them for face treatments like breakouts, it's best to take a mortar and pestle to break it down into a finer paste and squeeze in a few drops of lemon juice ( helps with pigmentation :-) ). Apply it as a mask on your (clean) face and under eyes. After 10 - 15 minutes, you can also gently rub in small circular movements (avoid the eye) for a bit of exfoliation. Wash it all off with with warm water.
PUFFY EYES
To de-puff my eyes, I'll pat a thick layer of cold coffee grounds beneath my lower eyelid and leave it on for 20mins. I find that this method helps to reduce the puffiness and inflammation associated with dark circles. Additionally, caffeine reduces the build-up of blood under your eyes which contributes to those dark shadows.
HAIR & SCALP
Massage into scalp and leave on for 20 minutes. Rinse well, shampoo and condition as usual. According to that research I mentioned, the caffeine in coffee can help stimulate hair growth and stop hair loss. One laboratory study found that caffeine helped block the effects of DHT in male hair follicles. It also stimulated hair shaft elongation, resulting in longer, wider hair roots.
