Coffee and Oatmeal Body Scrub

Last week I posted on Instagram (saw.it.pinned.it.did.it.blog if you want to follow along) that I had started making some exfoliating bars. I had found a few different ideas which I pinned to my Beauty Pinterest board.

Reading through the recipes, they seemed to have a ratio of 1 part soap base and oil, to 1 part exfoliating product. Mostly they used a purchased soap base. Since it is easy enough to make your own soap, I started with making my own mix of Lux flakes and water, then added an amount of olive oil. I divided my soap base mix into three portions, then added coffee grounds, sugar, and oatmeal. I added a drop of red food colouring to the sugar mix 🙂

I waited rather impatiently for them to dry, but had to have a little try the next day.

I tried the sugar one first. It didn’t lather at all, and the sugar had dissolved in the hot soap mix, so there was no exfoliating going on. I had done this mix last, considering the issue of dissolving sugar grains, but it was obviously still too hot.

The oatmeal, and coffee cubes worked better but I didn’t find them very user friendly. They broke up into small pieces which made it hard to rub into my skin. I was just trying them on my hands.

If you were to try this idea – which does look promising in the pins – you would probably follow the recipe a bit closer than I.

I could play around with the soap base and oil mix and see if I could make it work. But the truth is, I don’t want to. Because I think a loose mix works much better!

A few years ago I made sugar scrub as Christmas gifts for some of my family. So easy – I think it was simply sugar, oil and lemon juice. I thought it worked fine, but mum didn’t like how rough the sugar felt on her hands. Which is why I tested the bars, and the varieties of coffee and oatmeal, to see if they felt a little softer. They did.

So I took the ideas that worked, left out the bits that didn’t, and made a Coffee Oatmeal Body Scrub.

We use a coffee pod machine, so I just carefully cut open the lids of the used pods and tipped out the coffee grounds. I spread the grounds on a plate and put it outside to dry. You could spread it on a baking tray and put it in the oven for a short while on a low heat, but make sure you don’t forget about it!

I blitzed up the rolled oats in my little blender until they were quite fine. I don’t want my drains getting blocked up!

I combined roughly equal quantities of coffee and oatmeal in a small bowl, then stirred in some oil. You could use olive oil (as I did today), macadamia oil, almond oil, whatever you like! I just added the oil until it all came together, so there was not too much sitting on top. You could also add a few drops of essential or fragrant oil to make it smell nice, I didn’t bother.

It doesn’t look very attractive…

…but boy does it feel good!

Use it in the shower, or keep some near the sink to clean your hands after you’ve been working in the garden.

You can use this all over your body, but every body is different so just see how you go. I wouldn’t use it on my face, although there are a lot of coffee facial scrub recipes out there. See what works for you. A small amount goes a long way, so don’t overdo it! And as with any exfoliator, you wouldn’t use this every day.

Some may say there could be issues with the ingredients clogging your pipes, but you only use a tiny amount, and not every day, so I can live with that.

And if rubbing coffee over your body isn’t your thing, you could substitute with sugar. Brown sugar is much finer than regular sugar if you are like my mum and want something ‘kinder’ on your skin. And your used coffee grounds can go on your garden if you are not going to use them for beauty products. Don’t waste it!

Store your body scrub in a clean, air-tight container. It doesn’t need to be kept in the fridge. I only make up a smallish amount at a time, and it seems to last well.

Have you tried making your own body scrub?

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