Bags, wrinkles, dark circles — the skin around your eyes always seems to have something going on. Even just pulling one all-nighter can have your under-eyes looking basically purple, and the slightest wrinkles around your eyes can age you by a decade. You could have the clearest, smoothest skin and yet still be cursed with crow’s feet and dark circles. Why is this?
Photo credit: Beauty Within
This is because the skin around your eyes, otherwise known as the periorbital skin, is much thinner than the skin on the rest of your face. They don’t have the same oil glands that the rest of your face does and can’t produce as much collagen or elastin. Because of this, every poor lifestyle choice you make, whether it’s an imbalanced diet or lack of sleep, will most definitely show up under your eyes. Of course, because life is as unfair as ever, there are plenty of people who have been genetically blessed with thicker under-eye skin, which means they don’t have to worry about these problems. As for the rest of us, the journey to fixing up our under-eyes continues.Â
Plenty of people swear by eye creams that are formulated specifically for this oh-so-delicate area of the skin, and so many brands keep pushing their own takes on this hotly debated skincare step. But with all of this in mind, do we really need an eye cream? Why can’t we just use our regular moisturizer around our eyes?Â
Photo credit: The Klog
To put it simply, eye creams are really just diluted moisturizers. This isn’t a bad thing, though; because the skin around your eyes is so sensitive, the fact that these creams are diluted is perfect. And, because using a lot of heavy creams or occlusive products around your eyes can lead to milia, the way eye creams are formulated makes perfect sense. The only concern is whether or not you should be spending big bucks on these products, especially since you could easily just dilute your own moisturizer by mixing it in with a much gentler lotion. Or you could even just use a very gentle moisturizer with a very safe ingredient list.Â
With that said, eye creams can really only solve one thing: moisturizing the skin around your eyes. This is great because dryness around there can lead to things like crow’s feet, but if you’re looking for something that’ll cure your dark circles, then you might have to focus on changing your lifestyle and getting things in check rather than hoping some cream will fix it. For example, dark circles are caused by the vessels under your eyes pooling from a variety of internal issues, and this pooling shows up under our eyes because the skin there is so thin. Products with Vitamin C can help brighten up the area and lessen the look of your dark circles, but it definitely will not solve the problem. As for de-puffing, you’re better off taking a cold metal spoon and massaging whatever moisturizer or cream you regularly use into your eye area.Â
Photo credit: Beauty Within
All in all, eye cream’s status as the most hotly debated and arguably worthless step in your skincare routine is probably well-deserved. The research is somewhat inconclusive, and while they can definitely help prevent aging and moisturizing this delicate part of the skin, the price tags associated with most of them makes no sense.
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As long as you’re making sure your eyes are getting the moisture and gentle treatment it needs (PLEASE do not use any of your toners or actives around your eyes) you don’t need to shell out forty bucks for a pot of diluted moisturizer.Â
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