This week I posted about infusing oil with coffee to make an effective ingredient for fading dark circles and de-puffing eyes as well as reducing the appearance of cellulite.  Today I’ve prepared a DIY coffee bean eye cream recipe that I adapted from 100 Percent Pure’s Coffee Bean Caffeine Eye Cream.  

This post is for the DIYers.  I’m going to give you 2 recipes in this post-read on to see why.

A Few Notes on Remaking DIY Coffee Eye Cream….

The 100 Percent Pure Eye Cream uses Candelilla wax as it’s emulsifier.  You might have caught my post on candelilla wax.  It is a vegan alternative to beeswax and I found it works great in balms.  However, as an emulsifier meant to mix the water based ingredients with the oils, candelilla wax did not do the job for me.  Maybe 100 Percent Pure used another emulsifier I didn’t catch or perhaps it’s because they are the professionals but using candelilla wax was a messy disaster for me.  

I ended up using beeswax as my emulsifier.  Beeswax as an emulsifier can be tricky as well.  I had great luck with my beeswax aloe lotion recipe but making this eye cream proved to be a challenge.

If you would like to use emulsifying wax in this recipe instead of beeswax, I believe you can substitute it in place of beeswax at the same amount. I have not tried this myself so I can’t guarantee your cream won’t be really thick. Emulsifying wax is a more efficient emulsifier in water based recipes and it’s never failed me from Mountain Rose Herbs.

Also, when you are making a product that contains water, you must use a preservative.  Neodefend is the preservative and is always added into the water based ingredients.  

Since using beeswax as an emulsifier is so iffy, I decided to include a Coffee Bean Eye Balm that requires no water and you can make it vegan by using the candelila wax. I’ll get to that recipe after sharing the 100 Percent Pure dupe.

Another point I’d like to make is that 100 Percent Pure had a few extracts and essential oils that I did not have on hand.  

Also, 100 Percent Pure’s eye cream contains vitamin C.  I believe there are stable forms of vitamin C available but I haven’t experimented enough yet so instead of vitamin C, I used Sea Buckthorn Oil because of it’s extremely high content of vitamin C, not to mention everything else it does for the skin.  

Just so you know-sea buckthorn oil is very orange.  It will turn your cream slightly yellow.  

Another quick point, this DIY coffee eye cream smells amazing.  I never knew the smell of coffee and roses could be so nice but it totally is!  Since I haven’t tried 100 Percent Pure’s eye cream, I’m not sure what it smells like but my guess is that it doesn’t have a coffee smell because they are using coffee extracts.

Other DIYs Using Caffeine:

• How to Infuse Coffee into Oil
• Easy Coffee Bean Eye Roll On 
• Coffee & Chocolate Antioxidant Mask
• Firming Eye Serum

DIY Coffee Bean Eye Cream

• 1 TBSP. Organic Aloe Vera Gel (find it HERE)
• 1 TBSP. Rose Hydrosol (find it HERE)
• 1/8 tsp. Neodefend (find it HERE)
• 2 TBSP. Coffee Infused Rosehip Seed Oil (find it HERE)  Find out how to infuse coffee into oil HERE.
• 1 tsp. Vitamin E oil (find it HERE)
• 1/2 TBSP. Beeswax (find it HERE)
• 8 drops Sea Buckthorn Oil (find it HERE)
• 3 drops Vanilla Essential Oil (find it HERE) optional
• 2 drops Lavender Essential Oil (find it HERE) optional

Directions:

1. Fill a medium sized pot 1/2 way full with water and place on stove top.
2. Place a glass pyrex measuring cup with spout into the water.
3. Turn heat on medium and add beeswax and coffee infused rosehip seed oil to the glass cup.
4. While your oil mixture is heating, add rose hydrosol, aloe vera gel and neodefend to another glass cup.  *Neodefend will start to dissolve but it’s OK if it hasn’t dissolved completely once your oil mixture is melted.
5. Once your oil mixture is melted, remove from heat and allow to cool for 2-5 minutes.  Be careful that your mixture doesn’t harden.  It needs to still be warm and soft.
6. Once the oil mixture has cooled for 2-5 minutes, add vitamin E, sea buckthorn and essential oils and stir.
7. Next, pour your water mixture into your oil mixture.
8. Using a hand blender, whisk the water/oil mixtures until they combine and turn white/yellow.  This can be messy-I would wear an apron and hold your hand over the cup as you whisk.
9. Continue to mix your mixture periodically.  Beeswax has a hard time acting as an emulsifier so the more you whisk, the more you ensure that your cream will stay a cream.
10. Once you are satisfied with your mixture, transfer it to a glass jar.  It could harden over time so I don’t suggest a pump bottle.

This recipe makes a little over 2 ounces.

As you can tell, this can be precarious.  I needed to scrape the sides of my measuring cup and continue to mix for sometime until my mixture finally combined.  The water will separate from the oils eventually so keeping this batch small is a must.  

Also, I’m not sure how important it is to allow your oil mixture to cool down before mixing-I believe that is what helped emulsify mine better plus I didn’t burn my hand as I was mixing since it was splattering.  

I mixed my cream for a good 45 minutes before I transferred it to a jar-Not 45 minutes straight though-I just wanted to let it set for about 15 minutes at a time to see if it was separating.  You probably can see why I’m going to include a much easier recipe with this one!

I have written a much more in depth tutorial post on how to make lotion that you might find helpful. I’ve also written a troubleshooting DIY lotion post as well.

DIY Coffee Eye Balm

My coffee balm recipe contains no water so it’s really simple to make.  Basically you combine your ingredients (save the vitamin E and essential oils for after you’ve turned off the heat), allow the beeswax to melt and this balm will harden on it’s own.  I don’t think the aloe and rose water are that important to the effectiveness of the product.  

This recipe still contains the best ingredients of the first recipe plus I added my favorite essential oils for added benefits for the eye area.

Because there is no water or water based ingredients in this recipe, no preservative is needed. 

DIY Coffee Bean Eye Balm Recipe:

• 2 TBSP. Coffee Infused Rosehip Seed Oil (find it HERE)
• 1 TBSP. Beeswax (find it HERE)
• 1 tsp. Vitamin E Oil (find it HERE)
• 5 drops Sea Buckthorn Oil (find it HERE)
• 1 drop Carrot Seed Oil Essential Oil (find it HERE)
• 3 drops Lavender Essential Oil (find it HERE)
• 2 drops Frankincense Essential Oil (find it HERE) optional

Directions:

1. Fill a medium pot 1/2 way full with water and place a glass pyrex measuring cup in the water.
2. Add coffee infused rosehip seed oil and beeswax and allow to melt over medium heat.
3. Once the beeswax is completely melted, add vitamin E, sea buckthorn, carrot seed, lavender and frankincense and stir.
4. Quickly pour into a tin or glass jar and allow to cool.

This balm is meant to be hard.  That way you can rub your finger over the top of it and get a small amount.  This will be perfect for the under eye area since this recipe is very concentrated and contains no water based ingredients.   You can gently smooth this under your eyes morning and night.

This recipe makes just a bit over 1 ounce. It is best kept in a 1 ounce glass jar or tin.

I say this every time but it’s true-if you are going to spend time creating your own products, it is so important to buy quality ingredients because some brands offer cheaper prices but low quality products that will render your DIY worthless.  

I love recreating skin care products. Remaking Neal’s Yard Remedies, Wild Rose Balm was a favorite of mine to remake.

I must say, this one was tricky but what I really love about it is the coffee infused oil.   I’m excited to do infuse coffee again and make other products using the coffee oil.

xx, Jenni

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