Last year, I opened a FabFitFun box only to be greeted by a cheeky, overly confident, millennial pink ziploc-style bag from Frank Body:
Guess what? You’ll be naked in one minute.
Frank Body
Well, I never!
So – turns out, the pink bag contained a body scrub. For some reason I haven’t yet psychoanalyzed, I hoard the living hell out of scrubs. I had just committed to doing the body scrub equivalent of, “Project Pan,” so I could oh, you know, stop being quite as stereotypical.
Obviously, the next thing to do is open the brand new package and use it rather than using the tub that needed to be used up. Obviously.
The Bag
Let me tell you, it feels very odd to bring a zip-top bag into the shower with you. It is designed in a way that gives it a sturdy base, but it feels strange compared to a tub with a lid that unscrews, or a bottle you squeeze.
The seal, however, is watertight provided you are attentive. It feels odd to reach into a bag to retrieve product, too, but the strangeness erodes with time.
Coffee vs Sugar
Simply put, I enjoy coffee. I can’t say I thought much of using it as a scrub, and I initially scoffed at the product. “Oh, sure,” I thought. “Go figure – some jackass mixes their discarded coffee grounds with some oils, hawks it for $17 a pop and has an Insta-friendly product line that is making bank.”
Maybe they are doing all of those things my critical brain thought, but it is a shockingly good product. Most of my body scrubs have been sugar based – which is lovely and gentle, but gradually dissolves as you use it. In addition to coffee, this blend contains a bit of sea salt to help things along which has some antibacterial properties, if you care about that.
It works, but you may have to use a fair bit to get your whole body if that’s the goal. Coffee, on the other hand, does not dissolve in 2.43 seconds of exposure to warm water – so a little goes a long way. I don’t really measure the product because of the odd packaging, but I can scrub my entire body with one reach into the bag.
Fragrance & Novelty
Hey, yeah, spoilers: it smells like coffee. Or, the original does, anyway. Frank Body has a few other varieties that smell like coconut or citrus – each with their own benefits. It doesn’t smell cloying or awful. They even have a glitter variety; why you need a shimmery body scrub is beyond me, but live your best life I guess.
Moisture
A lot of scrubs feature moisturizing ingredients, but I have met one that feels like the Frank Body coffee scrub does. This scrub contains both almond oil and vitamin E. After I use it, my skin feels otherworldly. It’s so good, in fact, that if I use it before I shave, I can completely skip any shave cream/gel/oil/whatever. YES REALLY. (It can clog razors, though, so be diligent with rinsing).
I leave the shower with skin that feels happily moisturized, looks nice, all that jazz.
A Caution
Because ground coffee is not the softest or gentlest exfoliant, I’d advise against using the product on your face. Frank Body says its cool, customers that say it’s cool – but a bunch of people think that St. Ives Apricot scrub and baking soda are good facial exfoliants are good, too.
The Bottom Line
I want my skin to always feel how it feels after I use this. I am aggressively using up my other scrub products so I’m not just storing a hoard, and it makes me crazy to not reach for this. It is really, really nice. Target just started carrying it, too, so I don’t have to deal with only ordering from their site (though they do seem to have a loyalty program, which is interesting). I just purchased my second bag…and I’m still destashing the old/other stuff, ahem.