Disclosing Snail Discloses: The product reviewed in this post was given to me by Cupidrop for my feedback and unbiased review. If you have any questions about my rules for accepting press samples, please check out my sponsorship policy or get in touch with me directly.

For something that comes in such small quantities, eye cream sure can cause big arguments (among people like me, people who have skincare arguments). Some people believe that eye creams as a category are entirely pointless, that eye creams are just overpriced face creams in tiny jars. All anyone needs to keep the skin in the eye area healthy, these people claim, is regular old facial moisturizer. Other people believe that the eye area requires special care. The skin is often thinner, drier, more prone to wrinkling, after all, and it’s beset by unique concerns like dark circles and undereye puffiness.

When a line’s eye cream is as similar to its face cream as COSRX Honey Ceramide Eye Cream is to COSRX Honey Ceramide Full Moisture Cream, it can be even more challenging to decide whether the eye cream is necessary. That’s why I decided to take a slightly different approach to my review of COSRX Honey Ceramide Eye Cream. We’ll take a closer look at the ingredients than usual and figure out just what makes this eye cream different from its face cream counterpart.

Purpose: COSRX Honey Ceramide Eye Cream claims to moisturize, smooth, and protect the skin around the eyes.

Do not use if: You have contact sensitivities or allergies to honey, sunflower seeds, or macadamia nuts, or if you are sensitive to anything else in the ingredients list.

When and how to use: After cleansing, gently apply around eyes.

COSRX Honey Ceramide Eye Cream ingredients: Honey extract, butylene glycol, glycerin, betaine, 1,2-hexanediol, helianthus annuus (sunflower) seed oil, beeswax, cetearyl olivate, sorbitan olivate, cetearyl alcohol, allantoin, panthenol, sodium hyaluronate, macadamia ternifolia seed oil, hydroxyethyl acrylate/sodium acryloyldimethyl taurate copolymer, xanthan gum, ethylhexylglycerin, ceramide 3, rh-oligopeptide-1, adenosine

Notable Ingredients: On its own, there’s not much to note here. COSRX Honey Ceramide Eye Cream offers a solid mix of hydrating and moisturizing ingredients to keep the eye area soft and comfortable, with some ceramides to strengthen the moisture barrier and prevent excessive Trans Epidermal Water Loss (TEWL) leading to dryness. There are also a couple of anti-aging ingredients. rh-oligopeptide-1 is more commonly known as Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF) and is claimed to stimulate epidermal cell growth, while adenosine has been shown to reduce wrinkles. These two ingredients are at the very end of the ingredients list, however, making it doubtful that the product contains enough of either to have any visible effect on skin.

A CosDNA analysis of the ingredients comes up fairly clean, with butylene glycol flagged as a very low-level potential acne trigger, beeswax as a low-to-moderate potential irritant and acne trigger, and cetearyl alcohol (a moisturizing “fatty” alcohol, not a drying alcohol) as a moderate potential irritant and acne trigger.

COSRX Honey Ceramide Eye Cream vs. COSRX Honey Ceramide Full Moisture Cream

If you take just a quick glance at the ingredients lists for the Honey Ceramide Eye Cream and the Honey Ceramide Full Moisture Cream, you might think, Jeez, they’re almost exactly the same. What’s even the point of getting the eye cream if I already have the face cream? And you’d have a good point.

COSRX Honey Ceramide Eye Cream and COSRX Honey Ceramide Full Moisture Cream have 16 ingredients in common (out of 21 total for the eye cream and 22 total for the face cream). Five of those ingredients are in the exact same position in the respective products’ ingredients lists. Only four ingredients in the eye cream and five ingredients in the face cream differentiate the two from each other. According to my crappy mathings, that makes COSRX Honey Ceramide Eye Cream only 21% different from Honey Ceramide Full Moisture Cream in terms of ingredients if the ingredients are weighted equally. When you consider the fact that ingredients in a skincare product are not present in equal amounts and that the vast majority of the product will be taken up by just the first few ingredients listed, which are mostly the same between the two products, the difference is even smaller.

I managed to figure this out through the magic of basic Excel.

Of course, there is a possibility that the few ingredients unique to each product do make them significantly different from each other, so let’s take a look.

COSRX Honey Ceramide Eye Cream contains four ingredients that Honey Ceramide Full Moisture Cream does not. Those ingredients are:

• Allantoin, an anti-irritant and moisturizer. Allantoin is a derivative of urea and may be able to promote faster cell turnover. Since many people are hesitant to use strong actives like vitamin C, AHA, and retinoids around their eyes, the allantoin may serve a cell renewal and anti-aging purpose in the eye cream.
• Panthenol, a humectant that also improves barrier function. In addition, panthenol helps to “maintain the proliferation of fibroblasts, cells that create collagen,” according to the Paula’s Choice Ingredient Dictionary. Again, panthenol is probably here to provide some slight skin firming benefit.
• Macadamia ternifolia (macadamia nut) seed oil, an emollient that delivers abundant fatty acids to strengthen the skin barrier. Macadamia oil is known for being non-greasy, making it ideal for use around the eye area.
• rh-oligopeptide-1 (EGF), is an anti-inflammatory and cell-communicating ingredient that may be able to stimulate increased cell division, enabling accelerated skin renewal. The research is not conclusive, however.

So three of the four ingredients unique to the eye cream have anti-aging potential, and one looks to have been added for being more cosmetically appealing in the eye area.

That sounds pretty good, but all four of those ingredients are in the bottom half of the ingredients list. Since this cream is already 80% honey extract, I think it’s pretty safe to guess that those anti-aging ingredients are present in very small quantities and won’t provide significant improvement in firmness or wrinkle reduction. Therefore, if I were considering the Honey Ceramide Eye Cream but already owned the Honey Ceramide Full Moisture Cream, I wouldn’t buy the eye cream on the strength of its anti-aging potential alone.

But maybe some ingredients in the Honey Ceramide Full Moisture Cream aren’t suitable to the eye area, so let’s take a look at the creams from that perspective.

COSRX Honey Ceramide Full Moisture Cream contains five ingredients that the Honey Ceramide Eye Cream does not:

• Caprylic/capric triglyceride, a coconut oil and glycerin derivative used as an emollient. This ingredient may be clogging due to its relationship with coconut oil, which many people find highly comedogenic. It’s possible that caprylic/capric triglyceride was omitted from the eye cream to make it more gentle and less likely to cause breakouts in the eye area.
• Dimethicone, a silicone that’s used as an emollient and slip agent. While there’s nothing especially irritating or clogging about dimethicone, I have noticed that creams that contain it can sometimes (not always) interact poorly with eye makeup by flaking off or pilling up, so this might be excluded for cosmetic usability reasons.
• Palm kernel oil, an emollient moisturizer. I have no idea why this was omitted from the eye cream, unless it was for some textural reason.
• Palm oil, also an emollient moisturizer. I’ve got no guess as to why this is not included in the eye cream, either.
• Hordeum vulgare (barley) leaf extract, an antioxidant. Again, no clue why this wouldn’t be suitable in the eye cream.

I can’t really figure out why any of the ingredients that the Honey Ceramide Full Moisture Cream has but the Honey Ceramide Eye Cream doesn’t have would be especially problematic around the eyes. Even caprylic/capric triglyceride isn’t considered an issue. It’s derived from coconut oil, but it isn’t coconut oil, and it’s widely considered an excellent and well tolerated moisturizer.

Based on all of that, if I owned the COSRX Honey Ceramide Full Moisture Cream and were considering the Honey Ceramide Eye Cream, I still wouldn’t get the eye cream. It looks like the Honey Ceramide Full Moisture Cream provides pretty much the same benefits and shouldn’t cause problems, after all.

The textures of the two products are pretty similar, too.

The Honey Ceramide Full Moisture Cream is slightly thicker and stiffer, the Honey Ceramide Eye Cream a bit thinner and easier to spread. Other than that, the two products are pretty much indistinguishable in terms of look, feel, and (lack of) fragrance.

Review: COSRX Honey Ceramide Eye Cream

With all that being said, there are going to be plenty of people who don’t already own COSRX Honey Ceramide Eye Cream and don’t want to own it, and for them, it’s important to take a look at the Honey Ceramide Eye Cream on its own merits.

As an standalone product, COSRX Honey Ceramide Eye Cream is a pleasure to use, and even though I wouldn’t purchase it on my own, I am highly enjoying using it. Like the Honey Ceramide Full Moisture Cream, it’s deeply moisturizing and keeps my skin soft, supple, and smooth all day. You can definitely tell the difference between when I’ve moisturized my eye area with this and when I haven’t. It pats in easily and quickly, without any greasy residue, and dries to an invisible matte finish. I haven’t noticed any problems with applying concealer or makeup over it. As a final bonus, a little goes a long way and the jar is generously sized for an eye cream, so even someone with portion control issues (like me) will be able to make it last a long time.

Conclusion: This is the first time that I’ve given a product a split rating. If you already have the Honey Ceramide Full Moisture Cream, then there’s really no reason to buy this as well: the effect on the eye area is almost exactly the same. If you don’t have the Honey Ceramide Full Moisture Cream, however, and you’re looking for a mild, non-irritating, and deeply moisturizing eye cream that plays well with makeup and keeps the skin around your eyes healthy, then COSRX Honey Ceramide Eye Cream is an excellent option.

Rating: 3/5 if you already have the Honey Ceramide Full Moisture Cream, 4/5 if you don’t.

Rating scale:

Where can I buy COSRX Honey Ceramide Eye Cream?

A 30ml jar of COSRX Honey Ceramide Eye Cream was given to me by Cupidrop, where the product costs $24. Cupidrop is currently offering 10% off of orders over $30. COSRX Honey Ceramide Eye Cream is also available from:

• Memebox for $21, with free shipping for orders over $30
• RoseRoseShop for $16.74
• TesterKorea for 25,100 won, about $22.19 USD
• Wishtrend for $24.99

Do you believe in using eye cream?

This post contains affiliate links, which help support Fifty Shades of Snail. Full disclosures can be found here.