Re-using Coffee Grounds in Your Beauty Routine

We've been looking at various things to do with coffee grounds, we've even posted about these uses in the past. Today we are going to focus on some of the beauty uses for them.

Use coffee grounds to help remove product build up in your hair. Coffee grounds will leave your hair feeling glossy and smooth. If you have lighter colored hair, keep in mind that they coffee may darken it.

Use coffee grounds to make a refreshing face lotion. The caffeine is said to help brighten your skin.

Treat cellulite. Many people feel that since caffeine helps improve circulation that it can help reduce the appearance of cellulite. Create your own toning lotion using coffee grounds.

Use to exfoliate your skin.

Make a coffee mask for dark hair.

Use in a DIY facial, the coffee grounds will help reduce puffiness and swelling.

As with any new addition to your beauty routine use caution, if a beauty treatment doesn't feel right to you do not do it. These recipes are also not recommended for those who are sensitive to or allergic to coffee.

Re-using Coffee Grounds

In the past we've discussed several ways to use coffee grounds such as: dying Easter eggs, dying fabric, cleaning with coffee grounds, using coffee grounds in your garden, making a coffee rub for steak, creating a coffee woodstain, making coffee facial scrubs, or even as a coffee body scrub. We also did a blog on different uses for coffee grounds. But even with all those tips and ideas, there are still a few uses for coffee grounds that we've missed. Well today we are going to share those with you:

• Use as a plant food. Plants that prefer acidic soil will love the coffee grounds.
• Use to clean greasy, grimy dishware. Place a few teaspoons of coffee grounds on a cleaning rag and use to scour away the grime and grease. Finish up with with a thorough rinsing.
• Mix carrot and radish seeds with coffee grounds before planting to increase your harvest of these plants.
• Get rid of strong smells on hands from cooking with garlic, cilantro, etc. Rub a handful of used coffee grounds on your hands and rinse well with warm water. 
• Use as a mulch in your garden. (this works best with plants that enjoy acidic soil.
• Keep bait worms for fishing alive. Just mix coffee grounds with soil in your worm container before adding the worms. They enjoy the coffee grounds, and the added nutrients from the grounds help to keep the worms alive longer.
• Create antique looking paper for crafts and projects. Take your paper one sheet at a time and drop into a soupy mix of grounds and water, allow to sit for a minute or two and then remove, brush off grounds and allow to dry. A large casserole dish works best for this since there is enough room for the sheet of paper to go in without creasing or rolling up the edges of the paper.
• Create a diy air freshener with dry coffee grounds, use a pair of old panty hose and a string to create your satchel to hold the coffee grounds.

Did we miss any great uses? Let us know in the comments section:

Uses for Used Tea Bags & Leaves

We've talked about uses for used coffee grounds in the past, and we thought it was time that we wrote an article for those who prefer tea over coffee. So whether you prefer your tea in a pre-measured bag or whether you use loose leaf tea and a tea ball we have found some ideas for you to use those spent tea grounds.

Ideas for used tea bags:

Clean windows and mirrors. Tea is a great way to make glass sparkle, it can remove stubborn, greasy fingerprints. Just rub a damp teabag on the glass or fill a spray bottle with brewed tea.

Reduce eye puffiness by soaking a teabag in warm (not hot) water and applying to eyes for twenty minutes.

Soak up odors in the fridge. A used tea bag placed into the refrigerator will help to take away offensive odors.

Make your potted plants healthier. 

Ideas for used tea leaves:

Freshen the carpet with dry tea leaves. Sprinkle on carpet, crush lightly, allow to set for about ten minutes then vacuum up. The tea leaves work as a deodorizer. 

Reduce cat litter smell by sprinkling used dry tea leaves into the litter box. (Check to be sure it is a type of tea that will be okay to use on a cat).

Add to your compost pile.

How Does Coffee Work?

Each and every morning many people's first task of the day is to turn on their coffee makers and to make a good ol' cup of joe for their caffiene needs. Many claim that it helps them to face the day. But why is this so and how does coffee work to give this desired effect?

Coffee is a stimulant drink. The first to experience the "buzz" that you receive from coffee was a flock of goats. This incident occurred in Ethiopia. Coffee was consumed as a food until around A.D. 1000 when a hot drink was created from the beans of the coffee plant.

As you go throughout your day, you use energy, some scientists have found that there is a byproduct of the energy that we use, this byproduct builds up and causes us to become sleepy. It is thought that adenosine is this byproduct. Coffee makes us feel alert by its caffeine blocking the effects of adenosine on the brain.

So what exactly is this caffeine component in coffee? Caffeine is a naturally occurring chemical stimulant called trimethylxanthine. It has an effect on the brain that causes increased neuron firing. This activity causes the pituitary gland to tell the adrenal glands to produce adrenaline. Some of adrenaline's effects on the body are as follows:

• Dilated puplis
• Faster heartbeat
• Blood pressure increases
• Liver releases sugar into the bloodstream for extra energy

Many people notice that after drinking coffee their hands are a bit colder, their muscles are tense, they feel excited and their heart is beating harder. These are the effects of caffeine causing the release of adrenaline into your system. This is also how coffee helps to make you feel more awake and alert. 

But like any chemical coffee and other caffeinated drinks should be used sparingly. It is possible to have withdrawal symptoms if you quit drinking coffee suddenly. These symptoms are headache, fatigue, and reduced concentration, mood effects such as depression, anxiety or irritability, and less commonly tremor, nausea or sleep disturbances. Not everyone will experience these symptoms as people metabolize caffeine differently. Most who experience withdrawal symptoms have them disappear after three days.

Coffee is both good and bad for you, there are some health benefits to coffee, but too much can cause an addiction resulting in highs and lows when coffee is not available.

How to Use a Coffee Urn

Last week Pressure Cooker Outlet posted a blog on Getting Ready for Big Holiday Gatherings.

In this blog they mention using a coffee urn. Coffee urns allow you to brew larger quantities of coffee and keep the coffee warm longer.

If you decide to go the route of using a coffee urn at your holiday gatherings you will need to know how to use one. As always, be sure to read your coffee urn's instructions and follow those if they vary from our instructions in any way.

First what you will need:
A Coffee Urn
Ground Coffee
Water

Now the Steps:

Step 1: Remove the cover and brew basket. Also be sure that the spigot on the coffee urn is closed.

Step 2: Add your cold water to the desired fill line. There should be markings on the fill lines letting you know how many cups of coffee that much water will make after brewing.

Step 3: Measure your ground coffee out following the directions on your coffee or on your urn (some urns will recommend the amount of coffee grounds needed) for the amount of cups you will be creating in your coffee urn. Place the ground coffee into the coffee basket.

Step 4: Put your coffee basket and cover back into place on your coffee urn. Obviously, you will put the coffee basket in first and then secure the cover onto the urn.

Step 5: Plug in your coffee maker and turn it on. Your coffee will now start to brew. Be sure to read your urn's instructions to know how your urn will alert you as to when your coffee is finished brewing. Most coffee urns either have a beep or a green light.

Step 6: Once your coffee is done you will want to change your coffee urn's setting to warm or keep warm.

Step 7: Serve the coffee by opening the spigot and pour a cup of fresh coffee. When your urn gets low, unplug it so that it does not overheat.

History of Bunn Coffee Makers

For over 55 years the Bunn company has been making coffee makers. Bunn's headquarters have been in Springfield, Illinois since the birth of the company. In 1957, George Bunn created the Bunn-O-Matic Corporation. The first commercial fluted coffee filter was invented by Mr. Bunn this filter was created in a way that the filter was able to hold its shape more easily which resulted in fewer grounds being spilled into the coffee pot.

In addition to the commercial fluted coffee filter, Bunn also created the pourover coffee brewing machine. This  machine is used in commercial settings. It works by keeping the water hot then pouring the reservoir of hot water over the coffee grounds all at once. This method was preferred by restaurants and other commercial settings that served coffee as it allowed the coffee to be made more quickly than drip coffee methods. This coffee brewer helped to place Bunn at the front of the commercial coffee industry, and they still hold that spot today.

Although Bunn is more known for their commercial coffee brewers they do carry a line of at home coffee makers. Bunn Coffee Makers are of very high commercial quality.

Recycling Used K-cups

We've been gathering ideas for you to recycle those used k-cups. Here are our favorite ideas:

• Use them to hold finger paints, if the pod has a hole punched in the bottom, dry it off very well and place some good tape over it to keep the paint from leaking out.
• Make your own place-card holders for dinner parties by wrapping cute paper around the K-Cups. Cut slits on the bottom to hold the cards.
• Use to start vegetable seedlings.
• Use them to create stampers.

Or you can purchase a reusable coffee filter system to use in your Keurig.

What ways have you reused your k-cups?