Optiat Scrubs

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As long-term recyclers, upcyclers, advocates of thrift (um, counterbalanced by occasional splurges), we love, love, love this brand, which we encountered at the recent Natural & Organic Products Expo.

Optiat is a brother-and-sister venture founded by William and Anna Brightman, which uses coffee grounds for ultra-effective body exfoliation. The products were inspired by Will being given a cafetière for Christmas, and pondering on the fact that the grounds were thrown away. As he comments: ‘With over 500,000 tons of coffee grounds sent to landfill every year, I saw an opportunity to change this.’

So Optiat – which gets its (slightly weird-sounding) name from ‘One Man’s Trash is Another’s Treasure’ – formulated a collection of truly great-smelling, effective body scrubs.

Be guided by your nose, here; there are four scents – Mouthwatering Mandarin (the Feel Great Coffee Scrub), Vanilla Velvet (Hit The Sheets Coffee Scrub), Lemongrass Lifter (Pick Me Up Coffee Scrub), and our favourite, sense-awakening Potent Peppermint. They call it The Hungover Coffee Scrub, but we don’t get hangovers and it’s still a brilliant wake-up call.

The fine grounds are an excellent, microbead-free way to smooth skin when buffed into rough body bits – and get a caffeine hit, without the usual coffee come-down.

£6.99 for 90 g ­– buy here