As an avid coffee drinker, the bean juice can do almost no wrong in my opinion, and it’s good for so many things besides just giving me the will to live, I mean start my day!
I’ve been using coffee as a hand and body scrub for ages, and recently I started making my own oat milk, mainly to use in coffee (click here for the recipe I use, and have since altered to fit my specific taste!) and that left me with another by-product besides coffee grounds: oat milk pulp. I tried using it for cookies made in my dehydrator, and they weren’t bad! But they also weren’t that great, and it wasn’t long before I was back to just discarding the pulp.
However, it also didn’t take long for my brain to decide to try and combine these two waste products and come up with an even better body scrub than just coffee grounds, which I previously used on their own, or mixed in with some body wash.
The recipe is ridiculously simple, and I already posted it on instagram as a reel, but I’ve been using this several times a week, and love it so much I simply had to share it here as well!
Now, before we get to the recipe, here are some of the benefits of oats and coffee for your skin:
- Oats contain proteins, vitamin E, and antioxidants.
- Oats are gently exfoliating and can alleviate itchy, dry skin and eczema.
- Oats are anti-inflammatory.
- Coffee is high in antioxidants and also has antimicrobial properties.
- The caffeine in coffee grounds can temporarily make skin look firmer and tighter.
- Coffee grounds don’t dissolve in water, which makes them perfect for scrubbing away dead skin cells.
Both coffee and oat are known for stimulating the skin to help boost collagen production!
And now on to the recipe:
1. Coffee.
Duh. I prefer using the grounds from my stovetop mokka coffee maker, but I’ve used the grounds from pour over as well.
For those however, I would recommend using a cheesecloth to squeeze out some of the excess water from the coffee grounds, so the body scrub doesn’t turn out too wet.
2. Oat milk pulp.
I add quite a few extra ingredients to my oat milk these days, besides just oats, water, salt and dates, which the recipe I use calls for.
I add a bit of soy lecithin, some flax seed oil, extra sweetness in the form of agave syrup, and sometimes a bit of hemp seed. Luckily this is all stuff that the outside of my body enjoys as well, so if you’re using a different recipe than the one I linked, no worries, the pulp is still gonna do the trick!
3. Sugar and jojoba oil.
Mix the coffee grounds and oat milk pulp together with a fork and add a couple of teaspoons of sugar for an even better exfoliating effect.
In a cup or beaker, pour in a few millilitres of jojoba oil, or if you don’t have that at hand, any oil you have available will do.
You can also pour the oil directly in the mixing bowl!
4. Essential oils.
Add a few drops of essential oils to your chosen carrier oil, or directly into the mix, I just prefer blending them into the carrier oil first. These are optional and mainly added to give the scrub a nice scent (for those who don’t think coffee is already the best smell in the world!) but they also have skin supporting properties. Try adding some soothing and antimicrobial lavender, blood flow stimulating peppermint, anti-inflammatory rosemary, healing frankincense, moisturizing patchouli, age supporting rose… or any essential oil you have lying around and enjoy the smell of!
Mix it all in there and transfer your body scrub to a jar or closed container and use within a few days!
I usually make enough to last me a couple of showers, and my skin feels unbelievably smooth after using this, every time!
And as an added bonus, which is very important for me, as I can be in a rush to get on with my day after showering, it’s not the end of the world if you skip your after shower moisturizing routine, as the jojoba oil will take care of that for you!
Even though this recipe is intended to be used as a body scrub, it can be used as a facial exfoliator as well, and while that works really well for me, some people’s skin will be too sensitive for that kind of abrasion, so take that into consideration if you’re thinking about using it on your face. And of course, always follow up with something soothing and anti-inflammatory… like our soothing face oil!
Happy scrubbing, hope you enjoy!
