What To Do With Used Loose Tea Leaves

A daily cuppa (or 2 or three) results in daily dregs. So what do you do with all those used tea leaves? Well, yous could chuck them. But what near something more creative? More uplifting? Whether you're a DIY-er, passionate about sustainability, or have a skilful old-fashioned "waste matter-non" mentality, there'southward a whole world of options for what to do with used tea leaves!
A heart-shaped mesh tea infuser full of used tea leaves sits on a small white plate on a wooden table. It is surrounded by a potted succulent, cotton face swabs, and a green, blue, and white teacup with a paintbrush resting on the saucer. The overlay text reads: what to do with used tea leaves.

Feed Your Trunk

Re-steep Your Tea

The most obvious choice for what to practice with used tea leaves is to re-steep them. It couldn't be simpler! Just practise the verbal aforementioned thing you did when you made your first cup of tea. Same leaves. Same cup. New water. Done and done.
Depending on how strong yous similar your tea, you lot may want to steep it a little longer the second (or third, or fourth) time effectually.
Fun little bated: I may have fabricated this up, simply I swear I heard somewhere that the 2d steep of tea is lucky. Don't fact-check me on that; it may not be rooted in whatever actual tradition. Merely I take it in my brain that the 2nd steep is lucky, and if you desire to, you lot tin join me aboard this luck-fueled bandwagon! Who cares where the thought came from? As a personal ritual, whatever time I steep tea for the second fourth dimension, I make a wish equally I'm pouring water over the leaves. Information technology's a fun style to add a little magic to the humdrum of your daily life, and you don't even have to wait for your birthday to come around with those once-a-yr wishing candles.

Care for Yourself to a Spa Day

For a dissimilar kind of magic, you tin as well apply those soggy leaves to harness the power of self-intendance. And if that doesn't sound similar magic to you lot, so perhaps you've never experienced the transformative power of an at-home spa twenty-four hour period.
Tea, while not a miracle cure, is loaded with antioxidants and other goodies that nigh people'south skin and pilus go basics for! And while I may have made up the wishing thing (we may never know), I definitely didn't make this i upwards. Walk down the skincare aisle of your grocery store, or read the labels on the products at any spa, and you're sure to discover tea on the list of at least one product. Science agrees with me: tea is good for your body, your listen, and your face!
If drinking tea is a relaxing experience for you, just wait until y'all start slathering it all over yourself; information technology opens upward a whole new globe. Used tea leaves of whatever diverseness – dark-green, black, white, or herbal – will each provide benefits in their ain special way. Please be mindful of your skin type when choosing what to include in your DIY spa oasis, peculiarly if you have sensitive peel! But here are a few ideas to get you lot started.
Among other things, tea leaves can be used for:

• Face masks! Using the leaves "as-is" directly from your infuser volition probably be a little too chunky, only a quick blend in a food processor or blender, or even a nice chop with your favorite kitchen pocketknife, volition have care of that in a jiff. (If you have 1, a mortar and pestle would also work quite nicely.)

Depending on your skin type, you lot could add a teaspoon or two of honey, blistering soda, egg yolks or whites, coconut or olive oil, oatmeal, a couple drops of essential oil – whatever your skin will like! Just whiz up your desired ingredients in the blender with your tea leaves or stir them into your leaves after you've chopped or crushed them. Apply the mixture to your face, relax for 10 to twenty minutes, and rinse!

Annotation, you may want to follow upward with a toner or moisturizer, particularly if you are using a highly caffeinated tea, equally caffeine tin can dry out the skin. For that reason, green, white, and herbal teas piece of work particularly well for the face.

• Sugar scrub! Adding your leaves to a couple tablespoons of sugar and a drizzle of olive or melted kokosnoot oil makes a lovely exfoliating scrub. Not only is it great for sloughing away dead or dry peel, simply it's too proficient for apportionment! I find it a chip abrasive for my face, but information technology works wonders on easily, anxiety, lips, elbows – anywhere that might exist feeling dry or y'all just desire to feel extra polished. It's as well awesome as a total body scrub in the shower.

• Eye handling! Forget cucumber slices – the caffeine in tea makes information technology fabulous for reducing puffiness and dark circles under your optics. Practice note that since caffeine is what makes the handling effective, using steeped leaves may not take as much of an impact as using leaves that were only moistened. Yet! It will be soothing and lovely regardless.

Use 2 tea filter bags, muslin cloth, cheesecloth, or pieces of very sparse towel to pack the tea, then moisten and place the parcels over your optics for ten to twenty minutes. Just imagine lying back... waiting for your face mask to dry... inhaling the delightful olfactory property of your favorite blend every bit the moisture from the leaves reinvigorates your pare and relaxes your mind. I feel myself getting calmer merely thinking nearly it.

• Pes soak! There's zero like giving your feet a little TLC later on a long day of supporting you everywhere you needed to go. Our poor feet practise so much for us, and we so often take them for granted. Show them some love with a reviving tea foot soak! But toss your used tea leaves into a soaking basin or tub filled with very warm water, sit back, and savor. Yous could follow up with a sugar scrub, some stretches for the feet, and peradventure even a human foot rub with essential oils or your favorite lotion. Even better if you can become someone else to do it for you.

• Tea bathroom! If soaking your feet in tea sounds like a perfect mode to unwind, why non endeavor a full-torso soak? Tea baths are amazing for decompressing afterward a long mean solar day or reveling in the luxury of a quiet 24-hour interval to yourself. You could actually lean into the feel by whipping upwards some tea bath salts before you turn on the taps. Then light some candles, put on some soft music, and allow the world wash away.

Super Simple Exfoliating Face Mask

Ingredients:

1 serving used tea leaves of selection, preferably greenish, white, or herbal
1 teaspoon honey

Directions:
Blend or chop your tea leaves until they are a workable consistency for smoothing on the face. Small chunks are fine, as they will aid the exfoliating process, but large chunks will not stick well to your face up.
Combine tea leaves with beloved.
Spread onto face up. Let sit down for twenty minutes, so rinse over sink or in shower.
Enjoy your glowing skin!

Super Uncomplicated Carbohydrate Scrub

Ingredients:

one serving used tea leaves of selection
ii tablespoons sugar
Drizzle of olive oil

Directions:
Combine all ingredients.
Use scrub on any non-sensitive area of your torso that y'all desire to buff and shine!
Rinse subsequently exfoliating, and savour your newly soft skin.

Feed Your Friends

Tea is not but for humans. Yous can enjoy a cuppa with your favorite furry friend, dogs and cats alike. And when the whole gang has finished their teatime, you can employ the leftover leaves to revive your houseplants, your herbs, and your garden.
I must tell you, I'k getting this information second-hand. I tin experiment with cocky-intendance for humans all day long, simply I am a plant killer. I e'er have been. Try as I might, I've never been able to continue a plant alive for more than than a few months. Which is why well-nigh of mine are at present plastic. (I wish that were a joke. Sadly, it's not.)
But maybe the thing I was missing all along was that I never dumped my used tea leaves from the teapot to the planter when I was washed with them. It is possible that if only I had emptied the contents of my infuser at the base of operations of my poor little rosebush, she would all the same exist alive and flourishing today. (RIP, Katherine Elizabeth. You were cute while you lasted.)
According to people who know a lot more than I do about keeping plants alive, tea leaves make for fantabulous fertilizer, mulch, and compost. I'm not surprised; at that place's a lot of skillful stuff in tea. If humans tin can benefit from all that good stuff both by drinking information technology and by slathering it on their skin and in their pilus, then why shouldn't plants arrive on that goodness?
Practice your leafy friends a favor and add some tea leaves to their diet. If it perks them upward, share your pictures with us on social media and tag us @plumdeluxe! Maybe I'll exist inspired by your success and prefer another rosebush.
A green, blue, and white floral print teacup with a paintbrush resting on its saucer sits on a wooden table. Behind it can be seen a sheet of white paper painted with tea leaves and tea.

Feed Your Imagination

Tea can be a great way to heave creativity. Not only that, merely yous can apply the tea itself in your creative endeavors! In your quest to detect fresh ideas for what to exercise with used tea leaves, consider these artistic alternatives:

• Utilize them for an art project! Co-operative out from watercolors and oils – try painting with tea! Or employ the leaves to bandage creative shapes on the page and see what it sparks in your imagination. You can besprinkle your tea leaves on a piece of newspaper, stare at it "ink-blot" style, and come across what speaks to you. Information technology's a lot like looking for constellations in the stars or shapes in clouds – but you become to make it come to life!

Once yous've identified the shapes in your smattering of leaves, you can apply them to create one-of-a-kind works of fine art. I, myself conspicuously saw a Pegasus in my tea leaf "constellation," and did a kind of dot-to-dot drawing worthy of whatsoever unproblematic schoolhouse classroom wall. Who knows what masterpiece you might create? Again, share it with us on social media! We'd love to see it.

• Stain things! You lot may have noticed: tea is good at staining things. Mugs. Teeth. Furniture. Non ever ideal. But why not put that naturally tenacious pigmentation to practiced utilize? Attempt staining things on purpose! Using the leaves as well equally the liquid volition give your tea-stained materials extra visual texture. You tin apply tea to stain paper, giving information technology a beautifully antiquarian look for letters, collages, invitations, or any paper projects your heart desires. Or use it to stain wearing apparel for a new accept on tie-dye. (Tea-dye, anyone?)

• Read them to tell your futurity! Who needs a horoscope when you take tea leaves? With the proper perspective, that lumpy mess at the bottom of your cup isn't just a lumpy mess – it'due south insight into your life. A message about your future, advice nigh a pressing problem... stare into their moistened depths and allow them reveal their mysteries.

With so many uses for tea leaves, you need never throw them in the garbage or toss them down the disposal over again. Whether you're using them to feed your torso, your plants, or your imagination, in that location are enough of creative ways to reuse your tea leaves. Take fun, everyone!