The Green Beauty Guide

Meet the new green beauty superplayer - an extract derived from the fruit of the coffee plant - which scientists believe may prove to be the most powerful natural antioxidant yet discovered.

In development for the past five years, CoffeeBerry extract has been one of the best-kept secrets in the green and conventional cosmetics industry. It was even presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology - and the approval of traditional skincare gurus means something! In contrast to so many other green beauty treatments, there is a stack of scientific evidence to back up the claims.

Antioxidants help protect skin cells against damage from the sun, air pollution, and aging. Scientists have learned in the past few years that brewed coffee made from roasted beans is high in antioxidants, which seems to explain why drinking one or two cups of coffee a day has been linked with health benefits such as strengthened immune response, improved glucose levels in diabetics, and reduced risk of gallstones, liver damage, Parkinson’s Disease, and certain cancers.

Coffee beans are actually seeds, or pits, from a fruit known as a coffee cherry, but for years, this antioxidant rich fruit has mostly been ignored.

Folklore holds that monks used to eat coffee cherries for energy, rulers in certain African tribes were the only ones allowed to have them, and workers who harvested the beans had unusually smooth hands. Still, the coffee cherry had a tragic flaw. “Once harvested, it spoils and rapidly develops unhealthy toxins,” says John Hunter, an executive at VanDrunen Farms, a supplier of food and nutritional ingredients. As a result, once the beans were extracted, the fruit itself was discarded, burned, or used for fertilizer.

Then, five years ago, chemists at Van Drunen Farms discovered that the best time to pick the cherries was when they were not yet ripe-as -antioxidant levels peaked. Next they devised a method to process the fruit and beans immediately and standardize their potency. The extract contains high levels of antioxidants called polyphenols that are believed to prevent cellular damage in the skin when applied as a part of a green beauty regimen, either as a serum or a cream, and to boost the immune system when ingested.

Polyphenols are also present in pomegranate - which Jeffrey Dover, a dermatologist in Boston, calls “the flavour of the year” in skin care-as well as green tea; both have been added to numerous anti-aging creams, eye gels, sunscreens, even toothpaste. But according to an analysis by Brunswick Laboratories in Norton, Massachusetts, CoffeeBerry’s antioxidant content is five times higher than the most powerful pomegranate’s and three times greater than that of the highest-quality green tea.

Compared with a potent green tea, CoffeeBerry extract was twice as capable of protecting the skin from UVA damage. It was also better at inhibiting UV induced inflammation and enzymes associated with melanoma.

“This is one of the most promising new antioxidants to come along in years,” says David McDaniel, assistant professor of clinical dermatology and plastic surgery at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia, who has no financial interest in CoffeeBerry beyond the testing fee his team received for assessing the ingredient’s sun protection. “CoffeeBerry is safe and natural, with the potential to be another super potent antioxidant like C+E+Ferulic Acid or the synthetic idebenone,” he says.

No matter how well a new green beauty ingredient performs on skin cells in Petri dishes, the true test is on real women. At an independent lab, Cyberderm, in Media, Pennsylvania, scientists recruited ten women, ages 35 to 60, with wrinkles, dry skin, and discoloration. Each was given a basic moisturizer for one side of the face and the same cream with 1 percent CoffeeBerry for the other. Neither the supervisors nor the subjects knew what they were testing. After the women applied the creams twice a day for three weeks, evaluators assessed the results visually and with measuring tools. They found texture and tone on the CoffeeBerry side of the face to be superior in every case, with 46 percent improvement in fine lines and wrinkles, 64 percent in overall skin smoothness, and 79 percent in skin hydration. McDaniel, who has seen the study subjects’ photo graphs and found them “impressive,” also believes that CoffeeBerry may soothe damaged and easily irritated skin.

“I don’t easily get excited about new antioxidants, but I am excited about CoffeeBerry,” says McDaniel, who has evaluated skin-care ingredients for more than 20 years. “This is the real deal.” It remains to be seen whether women will make it a daily habit.