The past year has made us more aware of the importance of clean skin care. We are sitting at home more, often finding time to Google about how to enhance the skin using natural ingredients or products that are eco-friendly and high on results, but low on chemicals. People really want to know what’s in their skincare product and how good or bad it is, not just for their skin but also environment.
A number of brands as well are realizing the importance to be transparent, creating products that try to meet the demand of the informed and conscious buyer. The Switch Fix is one such label. The personal care brand recently joined hands with retail café chain of coffee roasters Blue Tokai to repurpose coffee production waste into personal care products. It’s an interesting idea: Over the years, coffee has become a limited resource. Global estimates show 23 million tonnes of coffee goes to waste every year. Plus, water scarcity and erratic weather put the yield from coffee plantations at risk.
We decided to try the Daily Grind body scrub (100g, ₹609) from their new range. The scrub’s label says it is vegan, water-saving, non-toxic, non-polluting, cruelty-free and plastic-free, and combines repurposed coffee granules, apricot oil and cocoa butter grinds. It promises to offer 25-30 applications and a shelf-life of 12 months.
The glass bottle makes for an appealing look, especially in a market flooded with plastic packaging, and saves you from the experience of squeezing out the last drop from a tube (the more preferred choice of container for body scrubs). The scrub itself is quite smooth and the skin feels moisturized after application. The problem is if you are using the scrub in winters (I started using towards the end of February) it is difficult to scoop out, resulting in wastage. It becomes too dry to even apply.
Verdict: If you are a coffee lover like me, this could be your go-to scrub, but the sweet aroma can sometimes be a bit too overwhelming, and winters is not the most ideal time to use it.
