Here in the Pacific Northwest, it’s starting to feel like fall. The leaves are changing, the temperatures are dropping and it’s getting dark earlier. If that wasn’t enough, Starbucks has started serving the ever-popular Pumpkin Spice Latte. There’s something so comforting about hot coffee and a warm blanket this time of year. If you’d like to translate that feeling to soap, check out the tips and tricks for incorporating coffee and tea in different ways into your recipes.
Coffee grounds
Coffee grounds add exfoliation and an interesting look in soap. They are considered a large exfoliant, meaning they will be more scrubby than something fine grained like sugar. Read more about exfoliants here. Coffee grounds are perfect for exfoliating the body, especially dry areas like feet and elbows. Used coffee grounds are best for both melt and pour and cold process soap. Dry grounds can bleed in the soap, creating a halo of color. After making a pot of coffee, place the grounds on a towel and pat dry. A general usage rate is about 1 teaspoon per pound of soap. If you want your soap scrubbier, you can add more from there.
For melt and pour soap, add the used coffee grounds to melted soap and stir well. Keep stirring until the soap is around 125-130 °F. It needs to be thick enough to suspend the coffee grounds evenly. Then, pour into your mold. The Espresso Melt and Pour Soap Bars are made with rich Espresso Fragrance Oil. In cold process soap, add the grounds at trace and whisk gently to combine. It will give your soap a lovely rustic look, as seen in the Espresso Shot Cold Process Tutorial.
Coffee grounds add exfoliation and interest to the Espresso Shot Cold Process Soap.
You can also add tea leaves or ground tea to your melt and pour and cold process soap. They can be added the same way as coffee grounds. That includes incorporating used tea leaves in your batch instead of dry, unused leaves. Make sure to pat them dry before use. Then, add the leaves and stir well. In our tests, we found the tea leaves go brown and tend to bleed in the final bars. Used tea leaves will bleed a bit less. That’s something to keep in mind when designing your soap.
If cold process is more your style, the 
Speaking of color, our Facebook Photo of the week created by Amy of 
With the piped soap on top and a dusting of yellow mica, Amy’s creation is full of color and summer spirit! If you are curious about piping cold process soap, this 
Shown above (from top, clockwise) is Amy’s 
