cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/3784040
After working on a bicycle or an engine, hands covered in grease, I can confirm that coffee does the job. Spent coffee grounds are gritty like sand so they work amazingly well to get the grease off. I use a bar of soap at the same time which causes coffee grounds to get embedded in the bar. It’s a good thing too because it always helps to have the soap bar a bit gritty.
That much is proven for me… been using coffee for years to wash greasy hands instead of buying the special purpose heavy-duty hand cleaners.
Coffee is now being used to make clothing and one of the claims is that it gives odor control. I’ve cut back to showering once per WEEK (a pandemic side-effect that became a habit). Even though I’m back to leaving the house regularly the shower habit did not change. So my armpits get quite rank after a week. 💡 If coffee grounds have a deodorizing effect, why not use them on arm pits? I’ve not heard of anyone doing this but thought it’d be worth a test.
So I brought spent coffee grounds into the shower and after one scrubbing with them my armpit odor was gone. Coffee grounds work better than shower gel. Normally I scrub with shower gel, rinse, & sniff. The first iteration is usually not enough… I have to repeat that process 2 or 3 times with shower gel to get the stink off. Coffee grounds worked on just one iteration. I think what happens is the deodorant is sticky & waxy which then gets coated with sweat then the sweat-loving bacteria. The abrasive grit from the coffee grounds scrapes the sticky waxy nasties away faster than soap can dissolve it.
Coffee seems to work on its own but I only did this experiment once so far so I followed with shower gel anyway for good measure.
(stop reading at this point)
nsfw begin
Of course arm pits aren’t the only area that stinks after a week. The groin doesn’t smell too good either. What develops to maturity is what’s called cock cheese¹. I’m not flexible enough to do a proper scientific test. The nose-crotch proximity is what it is. It stunk before the coffee treatment but not after. So it worked at least to the extent that I could confirm. I guess my next partner will have the noble scientific task of assisting with the close proximity sniff test mid-shower and indicate whether shower gel is still needed.
footnotes:
- Sorry folks. Indeed it’s not the most elegant nomenclature. IMO there’s a language deficiency here. That’s the only name the stuff has AFAIK. Be sure to forget that term whenever you’re eating cheese. Or alternatively it may not be a bad idea to just cut cheese out of your diet at this point.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯You were warned.nsfw end
FYI, coffee grounds are terrible for your plumbing, and can cause serious blockage in your sewer line.
I’ve heard that argued both ways. Some people claim it cleans the lines. But my instincts are to agree with you. If the coffee ground gets greasy that would seem to give it a chance to stick in the pipe or simply stick to existing grease. OTOH, grease in the pipes can be melted by pouring boiling water down.
Since coffee is great for compost, the bulk of my coffee goes to the plants or to the compost. But I’m still keen to clean with it. Not much is needed for cleaning. 2 pinches is enough for one arm pit, or two hands. Some coffee grounds stick to my filter after shaking the bulk of it into a plant so I end up rinsing those down the drain as well.
You can’t pour enough boiling water down a line to make a meaningful difference in cleaning your drain.
I had an extremely slow kitchen drain recently where a liter of water took a couple hours to drain. Every week I poured boiling water into the drain pipe that came out of the wall (bypassing the trap), waited ~30-60 min for the temp to drop a bit before giving a dose of enzyme-based cleaner so the enzymes had a warm start and could chow down on whatever was in there. After a month or so there was no noticeable progress. Snaked it. The snake made it all the way to the main pipe but strangely did not clear it. So I poured in ½ liter of sulfuric acid and let that sit for hours. Still not clear. Then I plunged the line with the acid in it using the kind of plunger that attached directly to the pipe. That cleared it. I have no idea what the clog was.
Now I run the dishwasher on the highest temp as a preventative measure. The lowest temp (50°C) is good enough for the dishes but I figure the highest temp (70°C) will help maintain my crappy kitchen drain pipes. It’s unclear to me if I’m wasting energy or being sensible. IIUC, the 70°C temp setting is for pans (which the dishwasher maker expects to be greasy). The clog that I cleared was from the previous tenant (a young student, probably careless and not knowledgeable about drains). The only grease or oil I put down the drain is residual after a bulk of it goes to the compost.