Coffee grounds have always seemed like just chucking them in the food bin; then I started this DIY obsession and now I KNOW. There are so many better uses for coffee grounds, before they do eventually hit the compost or food waste, which is lucky really as my boyfriend drinks waaay too much coffee.
Lemmie see if any of the below are useful to you too;
1. In my garden! Certain compounds found in coffee, such caffeine and diterpenes, can be
highly toxic to insects; because of this, you can use coffee grounds to repel bugs. Which is lucky as I recently had a fly infestation on my favourite Aloe Vera plant. So I just sprinkled the coffee grounds around the base of the plant and they did a runner. Coffee grounds also contain several key minerals for plant growth — nitrogen, calcium, potassium, iron, phosphorus, magnesium and chromium.
2. Just like my favourite Sodium Bicarbonate, coffee grounds can also help absorb & eliminate odours. Chuck the grounds into an old sock and pop it under your car seat (great if you have dogs!), into shoes, at the back of the fridge… You can even keep coffee grounds by the sink and use them to scrub your hands after chopping garlic or onions. The grounds will help remove the smell from your hands.
3. As they’re coarse they are a wonderful body exfoliator – mix them with some coconut oil and scrub away. Mix coffee with honey for a delicious, sweet, lip scrub. Not only will they help remove dirt and dead skin, they also have potent antioxidant properties – it will increase blood flow to the area which is brilliant for skin health (and some studies show it reduces the appearance of cellulite too!). I’ve recently become obsessed with this brand @upcircle and their coffee body & face scrub is RIGHT up my street. In fact, they’ve done a great blog about how used coffee became gold dust…
4. The caffeine can stimulate hair growth & strip build-up from products - Before you shampoo, simply grab a handful of coffee grounds and massage them into your scalp and hair for a few minutes. Then wash and rinse as you normally would. It feels pretty nice to exfoliate the scalp, it’s not one of the areas of our body we often think about exfoliating… BRB I’m feeling a scalp exfoliation coming on.
5. Repairing the scratches in my wood floor after I dragged the sofa out to hoover just 3 days after I had the new floor installed… this one was a magic tip that my father told me about. First, he told me to make a thick paste with used coffee grounds and water. Then rub the paste into the scratch using an old cloth, allow it to sit for 5–10 minutes and then wipe with a different cloth. This reduced the appearance of the scratch! He also said (though I didn’t try) that if you continue to dab coffee into the scratch using the cloth you will get a darker appearance (for darker woods). NB, wait a few hours between each application as it can dry darker.
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