Make the Most of Your Coffee
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"Dregs in the Cup", William Sidney Mount, 1838 (public domain)
Good Food

Make the Most of Your Coffee

A Recipe for Facial Scrub
Dominika Bok
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time 1 minute

Instead of doing a coffee reading, why not make used grounds into cosmetics? Here is a simple homemade facial scrub in the spirit of zero waste.

Take the coffee grounds from a coffee pot or machine and submerge them in olive oil (it can be from a press) or linseed oil. If you have argan or almond oil in the house, even better. Add a teaspoon of vinegar (e.g. cider or wine vinegar) and a drop or two of your favourite essential oil. Keep in the fridge in a wide-top jar so you can get the contents out easily. You can also mix the coffee grounds half and half with oat flakes left over from making oat milk, or with green tea leaves, dried (after steeping) and then ground (in a coffee grinder).

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Pluses: this facial scrub is excellent for the skin and the wallet. It oils, moisturizes and energizes.

Minuses: once you’ve washed it off, it’s time to clean the bathroom.

Also read:

The Scent of Elves
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Photo by Annie Spratt/Unsplash
Good Food

The Scent of Elves

On Lavender Oil
Dominika Bok

I like to think about the scent of lavender oil as elven, because in English the plant is sometimes known as ‘elf leaf’. Perhaps this is why it grew on me – and lucky that it did, because it has great qualities, is versatile, and can lift the mood on darker days.

Essential oils are the most common active substances found in plants. They are obtained from different parts: leaves, buds, flowers, stems or bark. They’re not all created equal, and they are rather complex – some consist of several dozen compounds. Lavender oil contains, among others, linalyl acetate, linalool, limonene and camphor. It has accompanied mankind for a long time.

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