Drink coffee, grow young

I used to joke that my hair and skin were the best barometers around — I joked until I realized it was no joke. Winter ages people mentally and physically — skin gets dry, one-off wrinkles gather into sprawling communities, hair assumes a remarkably dull shade, and bodies get a tad sluggish (and sometimes rounder). Thankfully, coffee, our eternal hero, is abundant and ready to come to the rescue. Drunk, scrubbed, or drizzled, let coffee help you feel and look younger this winter.

Skin

Say goodby to cellulite, stretch marks, wrinkles, redness, excess water, and dry skin. If you follow the latest body beauty trends, you’ve likely seen coffee scrubs and creams earning prominent spots on editor’s favorites lists — and with good reason. Brewed coffee and coffee grounds can be used all over the face and body to brighten, tighten, soften, and soothe the skin. Mixed with other natural ingredients, the grounds can even be placed under the eyes to reduce puffiness, scrubbed onto lips to remove dead skin, or mixed with some sugar to create a wonderfully agonizing, effective cellulite and stretch mark removal scrub. If you suffer from water retention on your legs or hands, coffee can help with that too. Simply apply a coffee scrub to the puffy area for 10 minutes and rinse — coffee’s absorbent and diuretic properties draw out the water. For skin prone to redness and inflammation, use a mix of coffee grounds and honey to soothe the skin and reduce the redness. While you can purchase a coffee scrub, we recommend making your own. You can customize the scrub to your exact needs and abrasion enjoyment level, and they generally take under 5 minutes to prepare. For examples of DIY coffee scrubs, click here.

Hair

In addition to body scrubs, coffee grounds also make a great base for hair and scalp scrubs. Mix your used coffee grounds with a oil or other viscous liquid / cream, rub the grounds onto the scalp and through the hair, and rinse. This scrub will remove all the dead skin from your scalp and stimulate hair growth (double win!). If you are a brunette looking for a little extra shine, after shampooing pour your leftover brewed black coffee over your hair and then rinse your hair with water. In addition to freeing your hair of any residue, the coffee will leave a delicate, just-glossed dark chestnut sheen.

Body and organs

Now that we’ve tackled the outside, it’s time to give the inside a boost. Drinking coffee offers many mental and physical benefits — it brightens your mood, fends off fatigue, is a great source of antioxidants, increase metabolism, prevents against debilitating disease and tooth decay, aids vision, and even extends life. While drinking coffee anytime is a great idea, drinking coffee at key times such as 20 minutes before starting your workout (it increases the metabolic rate of lean individuals by up to +11% and in non-lean individuals by up to +29%) or right before you need your memory in top form (coffee has been shown to boost short-term memory for up to 24 hours) can mean the difference between your feeling okay and like you’ve had an energy infusion. To learn more about coffee’s health benefits, click here.

To sum this up, drinking, scrubbing, and just all-out loving your coffee tightens and brightens your skin, gives your hair that youthful glow, reduces under eye bags, and gives your body the boost it needs to feel and look its best. Time to start sipping and storing those grounds!