Under Eye Assistance - Product Recommendations

Under eye circles and puffiness. We've all been there. Some more than others. Late nights + genes = tiresome faces and unwanted age demarcation. That's just bad math that we don't need to compute nor deal with, ladies. I was recently asked to give suggestions for how to combat these eye issues that are far too common, yet a little tricky to deal with at home.

Puffiness:

One very natural way to get some light relief from morning eye puffiness is to sooth your delicate ocular area with chilled tea bags. Steep some green tea the night before, then drain and cool the tea bags, and store them in a baggie in the fridge until morning. That will retain their moisture as well and prep the necessary temp. In the morning, allow yourself a good 10 minutes (or until the chill has left the bags) to lay back and allow the cold moisture to dissipate some of your morning puffiness.

If you still have some darkness and lack of tightness, do yourself a favor and pick up Benefit's "Oo-La-La-Lift" eye cream (*first picture). And I quote, "A wonder eye cream that works like an instant eye lift." This stuff really does work. I might be becoming obsessed. It just pulls in the puff, lightens a bit, and creates that perky sparkle we all aspire towards in our windows to our souls.

Darkness:

A lot of everyday folks make the common (very common) mistake of trying to correct under eye circles with one of those odd yellow-lipstick-looking thingies they sell at the drugstore. We've all been there. The problem with loosely grabbing the first "concealer" you see, thinking they're all the same, they're not.

The thing to remember with under eye circles is that you're not trying to lighten as much as you need to color correct. The issue with using something as bright and chalky as thick yellow cream/stick product is that it's both way too hard to blend into the sheer foundations out there these days, and it also completely flattens out the planes of the face and looks awkwardly light in pictures.

So, first you color correct, then you conceal with a base-like cream. I have images showing two of the "Camouflage" Palettes Makeup Forever offers for color correcting. When choosing a color, really examine your undertones. What you want to do is minimize the color causing the darkness. The way to minimize it is by neutralizing the problem hue with its opposite color. For example, for blue circles, color correct with orange, and for brown, use pink. Somewhere between the blue and brown is what's happening under the eyes.

For at home color correcting, you can use a clean finger or sponge for working the cream color corrector in under the eyes. The nice thing about using a finger is that the natural oils and heat in the skin can help move the product into delicate areas. The last image shown is the full cover concealer from Makeup Forever, which is helpful for general blemishes, but also to lightly cover the color corrector you just placed under the eye. This should pull your coloring under your eye back to your natural base color, thus eliminating the darkness and discoloration you otherwise see.

I welcome any and all hair, makeup, product or general styling questions!

Cheers,

Brett

I try to suggest products that are easy to buy at your local Sephora or other consumer-based shoppe. The general product images were taken from an internet search.