If you follow me here you’re probably familiar with my DIY Coconut Body Scrub. My life in terms of shower experiences has changed drastically for the better since I started making it: my skin is softer than it’s ever been before, and since I whip it up in my own kitchen, I love not having to worry about shady ingredients or having to buy more when I run out.

My original recipe called for only three ingredients, but I recently added a fourth: our used coffee grinds! And OH MY WORD this simple addition has taken this little scrub up like a zillion notches in terms of exfoliation, not to mention that the scent alone when I open the jar is pure invigoration in the mornings! 

There are some who *claim* that adding coffee grinds to scrubs and applying to your skin actually decreases cellulite, due to the caffeine in the grinds. It’s also been said that grinds from already-brewed coffee don’t count, since most of the caffeine is released after brewing, but you can bet your brewed coffee that they won’t stop mama from slatherin’ it on her thighs and scrubbin’ away (you could pretty much tell me that hopping on one foot while singing ‘Oh the Saints Come Marching In’  in Spanish works to get rid of it and I’d give it a go).

I’ve said it before: we budget ourselves, but coffee is one of our splurges in terms of great quality, so Bulletproof coffee it is for this household. Adding it to scrubs is another way to stretch my dollar, and between the actual coffee we drink, using grinds for compost in the garden, and applying it to my body via a scrub in hopes to ward of cellulite, I’d say our Bulletproof coffee is a cost-effective item here.

I love doing this because I’m appealing to three different senses with one product: TASTE the coffee for a pick-me-up, FEEL the scrub on your skin, and SMELL the delicious aroma! Check-check-check! I don’t know about you but I need all the help I can get in the mornings!

Here are the four ingredients needed for the scrub:

Here are the measurements:

• 1/2 cup turbinado sugar (you can find it in a health food store, or I like this one from Amazon, here)
• 1/4 cup coconut oil (again, in your local health food store, or here)
• 1/4 cup almond oil (you can get it here)
• 1/2 cup of your used coffee grinds (if you like good quality coffee, try some Bulletproof coffee, here!!) And remember to save your leftover coffee into cubes so you can make “Inside Out Iced Coffee” on the fly this summer; it makes for an excellent, quick little ‘pick-me-up’ if you don’t want a full cup of coffee.

Once you get all your ingredients measured out, just mix them all together in a bowl with a spatula:

Spoon it into a clean jar:

And keep it in your shower! The nice thing about this recipe is that it produces a small enough quantity so that I am not concerned with it “going bad”, or mold or anything like that (who would have thought a shower could be a place for germs to hang out?), and I use a scooper in the shower so I’m not dipping my hands into the jar. It lasts me for about a week and a half.

The coffee makes all the difference! I hope you enjoy this addition to your morning pick-me-up!