If you’re a coffee lover of the fancy kind – y’know, the kind that requires ground coffee made up in a plunger or machine, also known as the most freakin’ excellent kind – you’ll be well acquainted with the leftover coffee grounds.
This stuff is excellent for your compost and garden, and a whole range of other things (Check out this list for more ideas.) But there’s also a slightly less conventional way of putting it to good use.
I love coffee and I also love making my own all-natural homemade soap. So I put the two together and came up with a rather rad way to recycle used coffee while creating a marvellous invigorating and exfoliating shower scrub.
My soap is based on a traditional Spanish Castile soap recipe passed down to me by Francisca, an octogenarian grandmother who lived in a village near me while I was based in Spain.
Her traditional soap is a three-ingredient wonder, with olive oil the main player.
It’s great on its own as a simple unscented soap. It also makes a great base from which you can play with all kinds of scented combinations.
The base does tend to strip back the scent of many compounds, coffee included, which is where essential oils come into play.
To give your homemade coffee soap that deliciously strong caffeine kick, you can add coffee essential oil. But cinnamon essential oil is a lot more common – and it’s what I had in the cupboard – so that’s the main scent of this guy.
Cinnamon oil is also great for your skin.
Homemade exfoliating coffee and cinnamon soap
Ingredients:
Makes about 25 bars.
1.5 litres olive oil
175 grams lye
350 grams water
1-5 tablespoons ground coffee
20 or so drops cinnamon essential oil
A little cinnamon to sprinkle over the top of the soap to make it look cool, if you like
Method:
To make the soap base, follow my homemade Castile soap recipe here, pausing when the soap reaches the trace stage. That’s the time to add the ground coffee and cinnamon essential oil.
Adding more ground coffee will make the soap a richer brown colour and also up its exfoliating properties. Add cinnamon oil until you can smell it in the mixture. Keep in mind that the scent will dull as the soap dries and cures.
Mix well and fold the soap into a mould. Cure and cut according to the base recipe instructions.
Your beautifully scented, exfoliating soap should be ready to use within a couple weeks.
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Hi Koren, I came across your recipe for the cinnamon and coffee soap and would really like to try making it. I was wondering if I could use the coffee left over in a nespresso pod?
Heya! I reckon you could. I know that used coffee grounds from plungers etc work just fine, so I’d say the nespresso pod grounds should be fine, too. Give it a whirl and let us know how you go! :)
Was wondering how much castile soap to use?
Hi Anjie, you make the Castile soap as part of the process – that’s the olive oil, lye and water. So using the amounts of oil, lye and water listed in this recipe, you make the base Castile base according to these instructions: https://shemakesmagic.com/homemade-soap-traditional-castile/. From there you add the coffee grounds and cinnamon oil and voila! You’re done. Hope that helps.
Hi Koren
Quick question, Do you dry out the coffee grounds before using? or dehydrate them in the oven? or do you simply make a coffee and off you go?
Contemplating making a few varieties of soaps once i muster the courage to make some!
Hi there – I did use dry coffee grounds in this recipe but I don’t think it would make a difference if they were wet. Good luck and let me know how you go!
I was wondering if you could substitute coconut oil for the olive oil? Would it still turn out the same way?
Hi Kristina – no, you definitely can’t do a one-for-one swap with coconut oil. You’ll need to use a soap recipe calculator to work out the quantities. This one is great: http://soapcalc.net/calc/soapcalcwp.asp
It looks a bit complicated, but there’s a great explanation on how to use it here: http://www.lovelygreens.com/2013/11/natural-soapmaking-for-beginners-basic.html
Hope that helps!
I will certainly try this recipe,…I ‘ll be so happy to have a photo from Fransisca who give you the recipe, so I can Imagine this nice women who’s so friendly. when I give some of this soap , I’ll say >this is fransisca soap.
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Do you use cinnamon leaf or cinnamon bark EO?
Hmm, I’m actually not even sure! The bottle just said “cinnamon essential oil”. Probably doesn’t make a huge amount of difference?
Has anyone tried this, am curious about the aroma? Will I smell like coffee?
[…] out the She Makes Magic blog by Australian sisters Koren and Alana Helbig. They have a very cool homemade exfoliating coffee and cinnamon soap recipe that also uses recycled coffee grounds. It’s actually pretty easy and smells […]
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