Beauty tips for hard times: Coffee face and body scrub

During my hiatus I got into learning how to make homemade natural face and body treatments. I'd like to share with you one such treatment, which I got from the website eHow. (Video link to follow).

This recipe is for a face and body scrub made from three simple ingredients:

• coffee grounds (organic is best)
  
• cocoa powder (non-organic works, but if you've got the organic kind, use it)
  
• extra virgin olive oil.

Here's how you make it:

1. If you're making this scrub for your face, you will need two tablespoons of used coffee grounds. If you have a Keurig, this is about the amount of coffee grounds you will find in a K-Cup. If you're making this as a body scrub, you will need to use about four or five K-Cups, or whatever you use to make a pot of coffee.
2. Use one or two tablespoons of cocoa for every two tablespoons of coffee grounds. Mix the coffee grounds and cocoa powder together till the mixture is chunky.
3. Stir in enough olive oil to form a smooth paste. Don't make it too liquidy. (Unfortunately I don't have a specific measurement here; I just eyeball this until it looks okay).

Now, when you use this scrub on your face, make sure that it is freshly cleansed. If you're using this as a body scrub, you can use it right before you shower. (But don't use it right after you have been to the gym.)

I strongly advise you to use this scrub in the bathtub, before you start using the shower. If you use this outside of your bathtub it will take you forever to clean your bathroom. Trust me, I speak, unfortunately, from experience.

Stqart sing the scrub on your body. Really focus on the really dry areas, like your elbows, knees, and feet. Give your thighs a really good massage; caffeine is often used to treat cellulite, and is known to detoxify the skin. Finish up by scrubbing your face. Scrub your face more gently than your body, since the skin on your face is a little more delicate.

I need to add that this scrub smells absolutely decadent, like a mocha cake that has just come out of the oven to cool. Whatever you do, don't eat the scrub. Coffee grounds have a nasty texture in the mouth, as anyone who has sipped some leftover grounds at the bottom of a cup can attest.

Once you have scrubbed everything, turn on the shower and rinse! You will be brewing coffee as you rinse; make sure you rinse everything off, including in the bathtub. You don't want coffee stains in the tub!

Finally, follow up your scrub with some soap or body wash, to rinse the excess coffee off of your skin. This step may be optional for some, since the olive oil leaves a nice little moisture barrier on the skin.

Here's the link to the eHow video, if you would like to have that. If you're not familiar with eHow, think of it as YouTube full of instructional videos. The quality on many of these videos varies; this one is one of the best ones.

Try out the scrub and let me know what you think.