Caffeine & Escin Eye Cream DIY

Hello there! 🙂

This new recipe for an Eye-Cream will work great against both blue circles and puffiness; so if you suffer of these, keep reading! 😉
When you apply it you really feel that the circulation of the skin is improving (it gives a rather lifting feeling)!
I am really satisfied!

I wrote “blue circles” and not the more generic “dark circles” because there are two different kinds of dark circles:

1) The first case is the dark circle caused by hyperpigmentation of the skin.
Some ethnic groups are more exposed to this kind of discoloration compared to others (for example some Indian people have almost black pigmentation in the under-eye area).
You realize if you are part of this group, just checking the color of your eye circles: if it looks brownish-black… then that’s it!
[ps. don’t feel downhearted! It seems that people who have this kind of discoloration are less prone to developing wrinkles in the eye-area!! 😉 ]
However, this recipe won’t help you against discoloration, because the recipe should contain totally different active-ingredients. I will post a recipe that tries to solve this “problem” if you want.

2) The second case (which we try to solve thanks to this recipe) are the bluish circles caused by leaking capillaries.
You see: the capillaries of the delicate under-eye area sometimes are so fragile that a bit of blood leaks out, the hemoglobin oxidizes (becoming bluish in color) and that’s it: we look as if we had a small hematoma just under the eyes. 😀
If under your eyes you see a bluish circle, then this is your “problem” (as if these were the problems in life… 😀 ) and there is a lot we can do 😉

To help against leaking capillaries I have added in this formulation ESCIN!
ESCIN is a very good ingredient. Here are a few data on this ingredient:
– It is water soluble,
– It shouldn’t be heated (therefore in our recipes, if we are using emulsifiers which need to be heated, we add it in the Phase C)
– It can be added up to 2% of a formulation.
The main properties of Escin:
– Vasoprotector
– Vasocostrictor 
– Anty-Inflamatory
The bad thing about Escin is that it doesn’t smell good: it is not that bad, but it gives to the cream a “dusty” feeling. It can seem totally bearable in the beginning but it can irritate you after weeks of applying the cream 😀

Another “Prince” Active-Ingredient of this recipe is, obviously, Caffeine (I have already written a post about Caffeine, you can read it HERE).
Caffeine helps mostly against puffiness because it improves the blood circulation (therefore helping the exceeding water to move out of the area).

[If this is the first post you read and you feel confused about formulation, I suggest you to first read the theory of making your cosmetic creams at home 🙂 You can find the list of all the theoric posts and all the recipes HERE.
If you are confused on where to purchase these ingredients, I wrote a post about buying cosmetic ingredients online and I wrote a list of the most known, at least to me, websites for purchasing these ingredients online HERE]

Enough talking now! 🙂

RECIPE:

Phase A:
Water to 100 (HERE the explanation)
Betaine 5 (this is NOT the surfactant called “cocamidopropyl betaine” but this is the Trimethylglycine – this ingredient helps making the cream more soothing and more smooth at the touch. If you don’t have it, you can omit it)
Glycerin 2
Caffeine 1
Escin 1.5
Hyaluronic Acid Gel (My recipe HERE) 3

Phase B:
Murumuru butter 2 (you can substitute this butter with any other butter of your choice. I picked this one because it has low oleic acid compared to other butters but it is not an essential ingredient)
Cocoa butter 2 (I used unrefined cocoa butter, refined is obviously fine as well and, if you want, you can substitute this ingredient with other butters of your choice)
Tocopherol 1 (this is Vitamin E)
Black Currant oil 2 (this oil composition is rich in linoleic acid which is very good for the skin – if you don’t have it, you can substitute with another oil high in linoleic acid)
Abil Care 85 – 2 **[INCI: Bis-PEG/PPG-16/16 PEG/PPG16/16 Dimethicone; Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride]
Tinovis ADE – 1.2 **[INCI: Sodium Acrylates Copolymer (and) Hydrogenated Polydecene (and) PPG-1 Trideceth-6]

Phase C: 
Blueberry Powder Extract 0.4
Preservative (at the right concentration needed by your specific preservative)

Extra: add a few drops of an allergen-free Fragrance Oil (I don’t suggest adding Essential Oils because they are full of allergens and many are quite aggressive.)

** About this EMULSIFYING SYSTEM: Abil Care 85 is a silicone based emulsifier which can be used at room temperature and higher temperatures. It is silicon based and therefore it is not extremely eco-friendly. Tinovis ADE is a thickener which can be used without gelling the Phase A and must be used at room temperatures. Abil Care 85 and Tinovis ADE are a good combination for making creams with a good texture and in a fast way (since you don’t need to heat them to use them). I don’t like silicones on my skin but this is not a cream based on silicones, the amount of silicone in a cream emulsified with 2% Abil Care is lower than 2% and that is totally acceptable to my skin.
However, if you don’t want to buy these two emulsifiers (let’s say you want to avoid silicones completely) then you can obviously use a different Emulsifying system. Just consider that you will have to add a gelling agent in Phase A, you will have to create a larger Phase C (with Escin, hyaluronic acid gel, black currant oil) and you will need to heat up the Phase A and Phase B at the needed temperature for your emulsifying system.
If you have doubts, read the theory HERE and check other recipes HERE.

Now finally the HOW TO:
1) Measure and add in a becher the water (you have previously calculated the right amount of water 😉 ) and the Glycerin.

2) Add Caffeine


3) You can see that the caffeine doesn’t “melt” inside the water easily


4) Heat up the water with caffeine just a little, until it becomes all transparent again.


5) When the water is not warm anymore, add Escin

6) Eventually add Hyaluronic acid gel and betaine (it should look like the picture below: it is not transparent because of the escin, what is important is that there are no residues left on the bottom because it would mean that it is not “melted” in the water). Set aside.

7) Measure the Murumuru butter and the Cocoa butter, then heat it up until they are melted


8) Add the remaining ingredients of the Phase B and add them to the Phase A


9) This is how bad it looks when you pour the Phase B into the Phase A


10) Mix with your immersion mixer

11) Aside measure the Blueberry Powder Extract and the Preservative. Add a little bit of cream and mix in order to start “melting” the blueberry powder.

12) Add the Phase C to the cream.

This is it! 🙂

I hope you enjoyed this recipe: I love it 😀

For more recipes click HERE 
To learn how to formulate cosmetics click HERE
For a list of online cosmetic ingredients suppliers click HERE 

Have a great day! 😀

Any suggestion about a recipe you would like me to formulate? 🙂

This recipe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.