When the Homemade Stuff is Better

Scrubs, like cleansers, are a dime a dozen. And one of our mantras around the Superette office is that if you’re going to do something, do it right. That’s why we’re always disappointed whenever a product tries to reinvent the wheel and fails spectacularly. Z Skin Cosmetics’ ambitions sound lofty: founded by Ryan Zamo and informed by his mother’s background as a horticulturalist and his father’s Hungarian roots, they use a herbs and oils from around the world (which they note more than once) to craft a skincare company that sounds like Origins… We tried their Coffee Face Scrub which combines real coffee grinds and promises that we’ll see “a noticeable difference in dark marks, breakouts, wrinkles, fine lines and an added glow.” Like the name suggests, it did have coffee grinds, but not enough to feel it was actually exfoliating our face. It’s a mushy, oily cleanser more so than a scrub (probably all that coconut oil, avocado oil, and grapeseed oil) and though it looks like a melted iced mocha frap, it confusingly smells like eucalyptus and citrus oils. We definitely did not feel that all that cleansed, let alone scrubbed of dead skin. It’s a hard pass.

Z Skin Coffee Face Scrub, $19.00

Price point: Mid