Grums

Grums is a Danish skincare company based in Aarhus that builds its products around an unusual raw material: used coffee grounds. Founded in 2018 [10], it takes a byproduct that would normally be thrown away or burned and, in its own laboratory, extracts oil, fibres and other compounds from spent grounds for use in allergy-friendly, fragrance-free skincare. The range it has built from that single ingredient is deliberately small — scrubs, a face cream, a serum and a facial oil.

The company is still independently run and remains active, selling directly through its own online store and through retailers beyond Denmark. Its wider identity rests on circular-economy thinking: reusing a discarded resource rather than sourcing new material, and keeping the product line short on purpose.

The idea began, by the company's own telling, with dirty hands. Co-founder Simon spent a great deal of time repairing motorcycles, work that left his hands coated in oil and grime. He started cleaning them with coffee grounds mixed with soap, found that it worked surprisingly well, and that small discovery became the starting point for Grums [2]. A Danish magazine profile frames the same coffee-grounds-and-soap origin a little differently, tracing it to an old household tip from Simon's mother — complementary versions of one story [9].

Accounts of exactly who founded the company vary. Grums' own about page names only co-founder Simon, without a surname [2]. Editorial coverage identifies two founders, Simon Krag Christensen and Rasmus Nørgård, both 28 at the time the article appeared [9]. What the sources agree on is the setting: the venture grew out of what began as a student project in Aarhus, the city where Grums still develops and produces its products. According to the same profile, early products were built from scratch with a lab technician over roughly 18 months each, and about 100 kilograms of grounds yields around 40 kilograms of usable material once dried.

Grums frames itself around restraint and circularity. The company describes its approach as "quality over quantity" and says it deliberately offers a few carefully chosen products rather than a large catalogue, presenting its mission as a pushback against overconsumption and against unnecessary or problematic ingredients [2]. Its stated values are written as a set of contrasts — quality over quantity, circularity over linearity, transparency over opacity, and healthy over harmful. The tagline, "Ren. Effektiv. Ansvarlig.", translates as "Clean. Effective. Responsible."

Fragrance-free formulation is a core part of that position. The company argues that fragrance, whether natural or synthetic, is a common skin irritant across all skin types, and that it works through an evaporation process that can trigger a reaction and add to oxidative stress. On that reasoning, it says it leaves perfume and essential oils out of its formulas rather than adding them for their commercial appeal [7]. The range is also described as vegan and developed to suit sensitive, allergy-prone skin.

Coffee grounds run through every product. After coffee is brewed, the company notes, the great majority of the beans' nutrients remain locked in the grounds rather than ending up in the cup; Grums collects that leftover material locally and processes it into oil, fibres and extracts that go into its formulas. The line includes hand, face and body scrubs, a face cream and a serum, alongside a facial oil sold as Restore + Glow Coffee Oil.

The company attributes a series of skincare effects to compounds in the grounds, framed as its own account of how the ingredients work. It points to a high antioxidant content that it says helps shield skin from free radicals; it links caffeic acid to collagen production and firmer skin; and it describes polyphenols and chlorogenic acid as soothing to irritated skin and helpful against redness and inflammation. The grounds also yield fatty acids — oleic, linoleic and palmitic — that Grums credits with supporting the skin's barrier and holding in moisture, while the coffee's natural texture works as a physical exfoliant. Regular use, the company adds, is meant to strengthen the skin's own barrier over time.

Circularity is central to the brand rather than an add-on. Grums runs a collaboration it calls Kaffesymbiosen, a "coffee symbiosis" in which used grounds move between partner companies at each stage: ØNSK gathers the grounds from cafés as a resource rather than waste, Nord Invent dries and processes them, and Grounded turns some of the material into upcycled cups, while Grums extracts coffee oil for skincare [4]. The founders have described collecting grounds locally, by cargo bike from an Aarhus roaster, which underscores the small scale of the sourcing.

Packaging follows the same logic. The company uses tubes made largely from sugarcane-based plastic, glass that can be recycled repeatedly, bamboo for accessories, and FSC-certified cardboard for outer packaging [5]. It also publishes a carbon-footprint figure for the Restore + Glow Coffee Oil, assessed across the product's whole life cycle and reviewed against the ISO 14040 and 14044 standards: roughly 51 grams of CO2e per 15 ml, the largest share of which — by its own breakdown, close to four-fifths — comes from packaging rather than production or transport, which is why it points to packaging as the main place to cut emissions [8]. All Grums products carry the highest rating, the green flask, from Kemiluppen, a Danish consumer chemical-rating tool run by the Forbrugerrådet Tænk Kemi rather than a formal cosmetics certifier [6].

Grums has drawn attention in the Danish press. The magazine ALT profiled the brand in 2022, covering its coffee-grounds skincare, its founders and its sourcing [9], and the Aarhus outlet Stiften has reported on the company's growth from local startup to skincare producer [12].

The company is active. It operates a direct online store with a current product line, runs its ongoing partner program, and has published recent sustainability reporting. Its products are sold beyond Denmark: one account puts distribution at more than 150 stores across Europe [10], while an earlier profile described sales across 14 countries through several hundred retailers [9].