grande Americano, please

​If you’re anything like me, shopping and coffee are your drugs of choice. At this point in my life, caffeine has little effect on helping to wake me up in the morning, but a warm, delicious cup of coffee can really sooth my soul. A little bit of caffeine a day actually does show to be beneficial for the adult human body, with the recommended dosage of 400 mg (roughly four cups of brewed coffee, 10 cans of cola or two "energy shot" drinks). Plenty of positive effects can be found for the body but also for the skin, providing anti-inflammatory, exfoliating and anti-aging properties.

Caffeine and your skin: Caffeine has the ability to constrict small blood vessels and reduce inflammation making it desirable in many skincare products like eye creams to minimize dark circles and skin that sags around the eyes. It is able to decrease redness on a person with rosacea or reduce puffiness. Caffeine is also a strong antioxidant and helps the skin against free radical damage. Another thing I was shocked to find was that caffeine has the same pH as our skin, so it will never leave your skin too dry or oily!

Coffee grounds can also be used a manual exfoliator, although I wouldn't personally use it on my face. I don't really love manual exfoliators for my face and tend to stick to chemical but I'm all for a nice scrub down on the body, especially in the winter. If you are looking for a great body scrub, try a DIY coffee scrub at home. Side note: Coffee grounds are among the biggest drain clogging offenders so maybe try a coffee body scrub at someone else's house.

As much as I hate to admit, caffeine can have it’s downsides. Caffeine is known to be a dehydrator so this can show on your skin if you overdo it. Consumption of caffeine leads to a heightened stress response in the body. Stress hormones, like cortisol, may increase the amount of oil produced by your sebaceous glands, meaning you can be more prone to breakouts. Moral of the story, too much of a good (or freaking amazing) thing, can be a bad thing.

Caffeine and your body: “Studies have shown” that caffeine intake can help increase well-being, happiness, energy, alertness and sociability. I haven’t read these studies personally, but I love caffeine so I’m going to choose to believe them. Once you exceed four or five cups of either tea or coffee however, it’s possible to experience symptoms like shakiness, headaches and nervousness. Caffeine can also interfere with the compound in your body that helps you fall (and stay) asleep. For this reason, I try to not drink caffeine after like 3 or 4pm, unless I feel like laying in bed late that night, staring at the ceiling, thinking about mistakes I made 15 years ago.

So to wrap up, drinking coffee everyday will keep you beautiful and happy. Kidding… although I will truly just keep telling myself that every day, I don’t want to lie to you guys. Caffeine has some great benefits, if used within reason; like most things in life.