Nut love
Have you ever been lucky enough to taste macadamia nuts in chocolate? If so, you can certainly understand our ongoing obsession with mixing cocoa and macadamias in their various guises. It is an absolutely perfect combination! And not only for the taste buds, but also for the skin.
It is no coincidence that macadamia nuts are considered one of the best nuts in the world, and just looking at them evokes a feeling of luxury. They are sweet, crunchy, wonderfully creamy and buttery. Therefore, it may be surprising that the oil from these nuts is light, absorbs very quickly and does not leave a heavy greasy feeling on the skin. We wanted to preserve exactly all these properties of macadamia nuts in our cream.
Richly buttery but without a heavy greasy feel
The list of ingredients can therefore seem simple, perhaps even impoverished, but the opposite is true... It is rich, nutritious and truly caring. The consistency is denser like nuts, almost buttery, but after airing on the skin, the cream is light, soft and absorbs beautifully. The skin is smooth, beautifully hydrated, but definitely not greasy. We added beautifully smelling cocoa butter to the macadamia nuts, which, among other things, also ensures the creamy consistency of the product.
The honey in the cream works as a so-called humectant, i.e. a moisturizing substance that draws moisture into the skin and takes care of the aforementioned hydration. If you want a purely vegetable product, reach for glycerin.
The result is an absolutely deliciously rich and creamy product. The cream will be appreciated by the skin of the whole body, hands, feet, dry elbows and is also very pleasant on the face. It smells faintly of cocoa and nuts (if you like more intense perfumes, take a look at the end of the article, where we advise which scents to use). With it, the skin is hydrated, velvety soft and not greasy at all. Long story short, this chocolate-hazelnut face cream is great and you should definitely try it. :)
Chocolate + nut
Lately, we've also really enjoyed inventing recipes in smaller "series" so that several recipes fit together thematically, and mainly because we think it's a shame to use an ingredient for just one product. The last thing we want is for you have eco-coconut ingredients sitting sadly in the sideboard at home :) You can also use the ingredients from this recipe in a simple chocolate-nut lip balm without beeswax, take a look at it!
What does it take?
- 61 grams of distilled water
- 4 grams of honey
- 15 grams of cocoa butter
- 12 grams of macadamia oil
- 8 grams of emulsifying wax NF (or other emulsifying wax)
- 0.6 grams of Cosgard preservative
How to do it?
Prepare a water bath (ideally in a larger pot or pan that can fit two other containers so that both phases of the cream can be heated at the same time). Weigh the cocoa butter, macadamia oil and emulsifying wax into a heat-resistant container (eg a mason jar), place it in a water bath and let everything dissolve. Then weigh distilled water and honey into the second container, add it to the water bath and let it heat up so that all the ingredients are at the same temperature. Stir once in a while.
When everything is nicely dissolved, pour the water phase (water with honey) into the oil phase and leave it in the water bath for another minute or two. Then remove the container, dry it and mix its contents. Reach for a hand mixer (or beater) and beat a few times. Then let the cream rest and cool for a while and then whisk again. You can repeat the process several times.
Next, whip the preservative and, if you want, the fragrance into the cold cream. The cream will harden as it cools and whips. Then transfer to the selected packaging, container, jar or cup with a volume of approx. 100 to 120 ml. We reached for this beautiful golden aluminum can with a transparent lid.
Depending on the emulsifier chosen, the solidification process can take several hours or even days, so don't worry, I'll give it some time.
I want to make this but I don't have all the ingredients!
For a completely plant-based option, replace the honey with vegetable glycerin.
NF emulsifying wax can be replaced with another complete emulsifying wax.
Macadamia oil will replace another lighter oil, if you want to stick to nuts, try almond, hazelnut or pistachio oil. If you have a nut allergy, reach for safflower or grapeseed oil.
Cosgard will replace Naticide or Leucidal, but adjust the proportions and use as recommended.
Thanks to the cocoa butter, hazelnut oil and the almond touch of Cosgrad, the cream has a subtle fragrance on its own. If you like more intense scents, go for honey, almond, caramel, chocolate or vanilla sugar, for example. You can't go wrong with these!
