Moisturizing my face with an avocado

Experiment

To determine whether mushed-up avocado will clean and moisturize my face.

Introduction

Pretty much every site that offers natural or DIY beauty tips has some kind of article encouraging you to put avocado on your face. Some have elaborate recipes involving acacia honey and essential oils; others say you should leave out the fancy ingredients and just smear your skin with mushy fruit. I have sensitive skin, and I love guacamole, so this is pretty much the ideal combination of cosmetics and snacking. I chose a recipe that includes honey.

Materials

Half of an avocado (RIPE)

A few squirts of honey

My face

A knife, fork, and bowl for avocado preparation

Method

1) I cut the avocado in half and mashed it up. This particular fruit came with a big yellow sticker saying RIPE, so I know it was ripe. I also know that Harris Teeter puts these stickers on produce right before fruit crosses the line into inedible, so I am saving this particular avocado from the cruel fate of the dumpster.

The rescued avocado

2) Honey is a precious commodity in my household, so I didn’t use the full 1/4 of a cup recommended by the recipe.

Yum!

3) “Avocado and Honey” is not going to be the latest flavor sensation any time soon.

4) I smeared the mixture all over my face. Every time you see a picture of a woman undergoing this sort of procedure she looks almost terminally relaxed. I felt like I had guacamole drying on my skin. It’s not a very soothing sensation.

5) My cat seemed to enjoy the avocado/honey combination.

6) I convinced my dad and sister to smear their faces with goop.

7) When the mixture started to dry, I washed my face and examined the results.

My skin looks... exactly the same

Results

My skin is a little oilier post-avocado? I suppose? My sister said her treatment left her face feeling sticky. The only member of my family who enjoyed the smell and taste of the honey/avocado mix was my cat. She eats dead crickets, so I’m not entirely ready to trust her gastronomic sensibilities.

Conclusion

I suppose this could be your last resort if you have extremely dry, sensitive skin that won’t respond to any other treatment. It’s also a good excuse to get out of doing work: “I’m sorry, I can’t do the laundry now, I have avocado on my face.”

Washing my hair with coffee

Experiment

To determine whether coffee grounds, applied liberally to the scalp, will “Soften and add shine to hair.”


Introduction

Green Daily has a list of 21 things you with coffee grounds. Some of them sound like they’d work just fine (12. Rub coffee grounds on hands to get rid of smells from chopping or cutting up pungent foods), some seem like they’d work equally well without coffee (4. Make homemade tattoos with henna and coffee grounds), and one sounds like something that guy from your freshman dorm would tell you to prove his wares are organic (20. Grow mushrooms on old coffee grounds). Tip number 1 tells me that coffee grounds will make add highlights to my brown hair and make my battered tresses smooth and shiny. I happened to have made myself some coffee this morning, and I needed a shower anyway.


Materials

Coffee grounds (previously used for making coffee)
Shower
My hair

Normal, shiny hair

Method

1) I made extra-strong coffee and drank two cups.

2) I sat in the bathtub and got my hair good and soaked.

3) I rubbed the coffee grounds into my hair. When you’re making your coffee in the morning, you probably don’t notice the exact texture of the grounds. Let me enlighten you: they’re gritty. Really, really gritty. No amount of soaking in hot water will soften them up. Rubbing grounds into your hair feels extremely gross. You know how shampoo commercials show a beautiful model lathering up her hair and experiencing near-orgasmic delight in the shower? Imagine the exact opposite of that.

4) I sat for ten minutes and let the grounds do their thing. Fun fact: when ground-up coffee sits for an extended period of time on your shoulders, it itches like crazy.

Hair with coffee grounds

5) I rinsed the grounds out of my hair. When the water first hit my head, it turned a muddy shade of brown; I realized I was making coffee with my own hair. This is pretty much the closest I’ll ever come to having a super power. The grounds are extremely hard to wash out, and then you have to clean them off the floor of the shower so they don’t clog the drain, but those are the responsibilities that come with the great power of being able to make coffee with your head.

6) I waited for my hair to air-dry and examined the results.

My camera doesn't pick up color well in low light. My hair is not actually pink and green.

Results

My hair, previously artificially lightened, is definitely a bit darker post-coffee. I’m not sure if the stain will wash out with the next shower. The texture is all right, but if you’re after softness and shine you’re better off sticking with regular old conditioner (I think my hair was actually shinier before I stuck a handful of grounds in it).


Conclusion

I don’t think used coffee grounds are going to be the hottest trend in hair care any time soon. They’re uncomfortable to use, they leave a big mess in the tub, and the end result isn’t spectacular enough to justify the gritty means. The color change isn’t all that dramatic; I’m pretty sure the grounds hid my highlights instead of bringing them out. If you’re really intent on convincing someone to put ground-up beans in their hair, try playing up the making-coffee-with-your-head angle. That part was awesome.

If you absolutely must put some sort of caffeinated bean on your scalp, there are shampoos out there with coffee in them. I doubt they can do anything a regular shampoo can’t, but you’ll spend a lot less time picking grounds out of your ears.

Laser-Potatoes

The internet is a harsh mistress. She offers you wonder drugs and easy DIY projects, but somehow all those ideas that looked great on your screen don’t quite work in the real world.

Now that consumers are hesitant to throw away their money on $200 face cream and 24-karat facials, beauty publications are recommending cheap solutions that, well, seem a bit dubious. Should you moisturize your skin by spraying yourself with milk? Can you wash your face with an avocado? Will your hair get shinier if you rub it with coffee grounds?

The answer is almost certainly no, you can’t replace scar-removal laser surgery with a potato or melt fat with apple cider. If the cures for bad skin, depression, dull hair, obesity, the common cold, and so on are already sitting in our kitchens, why would anyone buy expensive (and often equally useless) products? Why, if these miracle foodstuffs are so readily available, aren’t advertisers leaping at the chance to tell you how much coffee is in your shampoo or how many potatoes they’re using to fuel their lasers?

This is what I found when I looked up "laser potato"

Still, every once in a while someone suggests a cheap, common product that actually does live up to the hype. Baking soda really can substitute for a variety of abrasive cleaning products. Vinegar can do more than make your salad taste good. If there is in fact a miraculous product lurking in my refrigerator, I want to know about it—even if I do have to rub a lot of crap on my face just in case.

I can’t afford fancy-pants double-blind tests and research assistants and data collection. Those things are for real scientists, and I hope to god real scientists are not researching the cleansing power of avocados. My only test subject is myself, and my laboratory is my fridge. My experiments will be messy, gross, and of dubious scientific value--but they will be delicious.