Exfoliating your skin doesn’t have to come with a hefty price tag or a lot of synthetic ingredients and microplastic beads. Coffee, one of humankind’s favorite fixes, makes an excellent base for a homemade exfoliating scrub that can leave your skin smooth, glowing, and feeling refreshed.

If there’s one thing we love, it’s multipurpose sustainable solutions, and homemade coffee ground scrubs are the perfect example of that. Food waste solutions meet zero waste skincare!

Not only does a DIY coffee scrub exfoliate the skin and put your morning leftovers to good use, but it’s also research also suggests the caffeine in coffee grounds has potent antioxidant properties to fight sun and free radical damage, boosts collagen levels, and increases blood flow for overall more youthful and healthy skin.

And rest assured that you can use these wherever your skin needs a little boost. The formula below is safe and usable as a coffee hand scrub, face scrub, lip scrub, and general body scrub.

Index: Homemade Coffee Scrub

  1. DIY Coconut Coffee Body Scrub Recipe Jump to section
  2. Cost Savings of Making Your Own Coffee Scrub Jump to section
  3. Why Make Your Own DIY Coffee Scrub? Jump to section

DIY Coconut Coffee Body Scrub Recipe

This exfoliating sugar coffee scrub combines the coarse and caffeinated power of ground coffee with natural oil and honey to exfoliate, hydrate, and stimulate circulation for smoother, brighter skin.

Ingredients:

  • Ground Coffee (¼ cup): Coffee is a natural exfoliant that removes dead skin cells while stimulating blood circulation, helping to reduce the appearance of cellulite and promote healthy skin.
  • Coconut Oil (1 tbsp): A deeply hydrating oil that helps moisturize and soften skin, leaving it smooth and nourished.
  • Sugar (1 tbsp): An additional gentle exfoliant that helps slough off dead skin cells and boosts the scrub’s effectiveness.
  • Honey (1/2 tbsp): A natural humectant that locks moisture into the skin while also soothing and brightening.

Instructions:

  1. If your coconut oil is in a solid state, use a double boiler or microwave to melt.
  2. Add the honey, ground coffee, sugar. We recommend using old coffee grounds from your morning brew.
  3. Stirr until the mixture forms a thick paste.
  4. Apply the scrub to damp skin, gently massaging it in circular motions to exfoliate. Pay extra attention to areas that need some extra love, such as elbows, knees, or thighs. Pro tip: do this in the shower or over a sink, as clumps can fall off in the process.
  5. Rinse off with warm water and pat your skin dry.

Cost Savings of Making Your Own Coffee Scrub

Store-bought body scrubs can range from $10 to $40, and many are packed with synthetic fragrances, polluting plastic microbeads, additives, foaming agents and other harsh chemicals. By making your own coffee scrub, you get all the benefits of an exfoliating, hydrating scrub for a fraction of the price. Here’s the math.

DIY Coconut Coffee Body Scrub

This exfoliating sugar coffee scrub combines the coarse and caffeinated power of ground coffee with natural oil and honey to exfoliate, hydrate, and stimulate circulation for smoother, brighter skin.

  • Ground Coffee: Free! (provided your recycling your already brewed grounds)
  • Coconut Oil: $12 for a 30 fl oz tub (~$0.20 for 1 tbsp)
  • Sugar: $4 for a 4 lbs bag (~$0.03 for 1 tbsp)
  • Honey: $11 for a 32 oz bottle (if not organic) (~$0.09 for 1/2 tbsp)

Cost per batch: ~$0.32 (recipe makes about 3 fl oz, equivalent to $0.11 per fl oz)

Store-Bought Equivalent: ~$10+ for a 4 oz tube (e.g., Aveeno, Sun Bum, Burt’s Bees, or similar mid-tier skincare brands)

Savings per Batch: $9.54

Why Make Your Own DIY Coffee Scrub?

Most commercial body scrubs contain artificial fragrances, preservatives, and microplastics that harm your skin and the environment. Here are some common ingredients to watch out for in store-bought scrubs:

  • Polyethylene (microbeads): These small plastic particles don’t biodegrade, harming marine life and polluting water. Though microbeads were technically banned by the FDA in 2015, older products or cheaply made products from foreign countries may still contain them
  • Parabens: Preservatives that can disrupt hormone function and irritate the skin.
  • Fragrance: Synthetic scents that can cause allergic reactions, skin irritation, and also hormone disruption due to phthalate content.
  • Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS): A harsh detergent that disrupts the skin’s natural barrier and strips the skin of its natural oils, leaving it dry and irritated.
  • Lactic & Glycolic Acids: Generally considered safe but are known to irritate sensitive skin.

By making your own homemade beauty products or DIY makeup, you avoid these potentially harmful ingredients, not only benefiting your skin, but making for an overall more sustainable skincare routine.

Amber McDaniel is one of Sustainable Jungle's writers and our Head of Content
Amber McDaniel

Amber obtained Bachelor of Arts degrees in English, Creative Writing, and Psychology from The University of Oxford and Arcadia University. She is an avid crafter, gardener, quail farmer, wannabe novelist, and self-proclaimed eco adventurer. From living in a camper van to living in a tiny house, she is enamored by the small and self-sufficient; and aspires to one day become an off-grid micro-farmer, bridging sustainability with non-toxic living and eating. With a passion for outdoor sports like rock climbing, skiing, and travel, having already backpacked across 30 countries, she is always up for the next big adventure while seeking ways to minimize her impact along the way.