Two talented Dublin sisters are turning used coffee grounds from cafes into a range of sustainable skincare products.
Dun Laoghaire women Aisling and Sadhbh Wood are making waves with their start-up Bean Around selling handmade exfoliating products. The young duo collect used coffee grounds from local cafes and work canteens and transform them into soap bars and body scrubs that they claim can easily remove old fake tan.
The idea came to Aisling, 19, and Sadhbh, 21, two years ago when their dad bought a coffee machine for the family. Aisling told Dublin Live: "My dad has psoriasis. We got a coffee machine two years ago. He started using the coffee grinds as just a makeshift scrub. One day he decided to mix the grounds with some soap.
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"One day, Sadhbh was going out and she couldn’t find her exfoliating mitt. It was probably in the bin. So she panicked and used Dad’s soap. She loved it and she told me. And it all happened from there."
Each product is handmade with great care at their kitchen table, Aisling said. Bean Around currently sells soap bars in two fragrances, lavender and peppermint, but Aisling added that the sisters are looking into introducing other scents too.
Aisling said the initial days of Bean Around were difficult as it took some of the cafes a little bit of convincing to donate their grounds. She said: "Some of the cafes took a little bit of convincing but if we didn’t take the coffee grounds, they’d have to pay to get it taken away. It would be more effort for them.
"But we went in and said, ‘Oh, we’ll take these away for you and make products and you can sell them in your shops and show people that this was made from the coffee from your store’. It shows that they’re doing something good as well.
Sadhbh studies Law and Business at UCD and Aisling is doing a degree in Business at DCU. Aisling laughed: "It’s great because I’d be sitting in lectures and I’d be like, ‘Oh my God, I can use this for Bean Around'."
Aisling also gave a shout-out to a popular cafe in Dun Laoghaire that has supported the sisters since they started Bean Around. She said: "One of the main places you can find us, it’s the place that we got started with and has always supported us is a coffee shop in Dun Laoghaire called JJ Darboven.
"They were the first coffee shop to offer us their coffee grounds. They’ve been supportive for over a year and a half. They’ve been great."
You can find their products in JJ Darboven and The Jungle. Bean Around is also involved with Supervalu's Food Academy Programme for the past 12 months. You can follow Bean Around on Instagram.
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