Leftover Coffee Grounds

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Have you seen my post about making cold-pressed coffee?  If you haven’t, you can check it out here.  That’s a good place to start if you are in need of some coffee grounds. :) Today, I want to share with you what to do with the leftover coffee grounds.  Don’t throw them away or wash the grounds down your sink.  There are so many uses, who knew!

Household

• Fireplace – Before you clean the ashes out of your fireplace, sprinkle them with wet coffee grounds.  They’ll be easier to remove, and the ash and dust won’t pollute the atmosphere of the room.
• Freezer –  Get rid of the smell of spoiled food after a freezer failure.  Fill a couple of bowls with used or fresh coffee grounds and place them in the freezer overnight.  For a flavored-coffee scent, add a couple of drops of vanilla to the grounds.
• Rub coffee grounds on hands to get rid of smells from chopping or cutting up pungent foods.
• When you need an abrasive cleaner, coffee grounds can be used.  Be careful of any surfaces that might stain.
• Remove furniture scratches with wet coffee grounds.
• Dye fabric, paper or Easter eggs.  Simply add used coffee grounds to warm water and let sit a bit to create a dye.

Gardening

• Fertilizer – Don’t throw out those old coffee grounds.  They’re chock-full o’ nutrients that your acidic-loving plants crave.  Save them to fertilize rose bushes, azaleas, rhododendrons, evergreens, and camellias. It’s better to use grounds from a drip coffeemaker than the boiled grounds from a percolator.  The drip grounds are richer in nitrogen.
• Work used coffee grounds into your garden soil before seed planting.  After your plants start to emerge, work in some more in near the plants.  Used coffee grounds are said to repel snails and slugs as well as adding nutrients to the soil.
• Increase your carrot and radish harvest by mixing seeds with dry coffee grounds before planting the seeds.
• Add used coffee grounds to the pots of indoor plants.
• Cat repellent for the garden – Kitty won’t think of your garden as a latrine anymore if you spread a pungent mixture of orange peels and the grounds around your plants.  The mix acts as great fertilizer too.
• Use to repel ants.

Skin / Beauty

• Soften and add shine to hair. When washing your hair, rub coffee grounds through wet hair and rinse.  For brown hair, it even adds highlights.
• Use as an exfoliant for skin. Pat on skin, massage over skin, rinse.
• Add them to your skin mask beauty routine.
• Reduce cellulite? – Supposedly the secret ingredient in high-priced cellulite cream is coffee.  So save money and make your own.  Mix 1/4 cup warm, used coffee grounds with one tablespoon of oil (olive, almond, walnut or massage oil will do).  Stand on newspaper in the bathtub and apply the mixture over your cellulite zones.  Then wrap yourself in plastic wrap and leave on for up to five minutes.  Unwind the plastic wrap, then brush off the loose grounds.  Remove the newspaper and take a warm shower using an exfoliating brush.  Repeat twice a week.  Don’t hold me accountable for this; I just read this stuff. haha