Hi friends,
I readily admit to you all that I tend to try to get away with as few steps as possible when it comes to my skin. Maybe it's laziness, but I like to think it's because there are so many other lives that rely on me (husband, dogs, cats, chickens, et al) that I just can't spend my whole morning faffing around in the bathroom. The one step I've learned the hard way that I can't cut out is eye cream, and neither should you.
The skin around your eyes is the thinnest skin on your body, roughly a quarter the thickness of the skin on your cheeks. There are little to no oil glands around the eyes, so it can't retain moisture the way the rest of your face does. This skin also moves more than almost any other part of your body — you blink somewhere around 15,000–20,000 times a day; that's a lot of work for skin that
for some reason wasn't designed to be resilient, which is why fine lines tend to show up there first.
For years I tried to get away with using my regular moisturizer as an eye cream because I also heard influencers say you don't need a separate cream. I'm sorry, they were flat out wrong! Facial formulas are designed for thicker skin with oil glands that produce moisture and retain hydration, so they tend to be too heavy for delicate skin around the eyes and often contain actives that
are too concentrated for the eye area. Over time, heavy ingredients can trap keratin under thin skin, leading to the development of milia bumps (that require a needle to remove), even if that facial cream doesn't make your skin irritated. Worse still, richer night creams can migrate around the eye while you sleep, which is a common hidden cause of morning puffiness, something that most of us complain about regularly.
There are tons of eye creams out there, and of course I think the ones I carry are the best, but there are other good ones. So let's talk about how to pinpoint what's happening around your eyes so you can narrow down what you are looking for in an eye cream before you buy one that's maybe better for someone else than it is for you.
Almost everyone's under-eye concern falls into one (or more) of these buckets: Dark circles that are blue or purple-toned — this is usually blood vessels showing through very thin skin, not pigment. It needs something that targets circulation and vascular tone, not just a brightener. Dullness, tired-looking or environmentally stressed skin — common if you're in a city, sleep-deprived, or on screens most of the day. This calls for antioxidant defense and a light, de-puffing texture. Dehydration lines and crepey texture — these come and go with hydration and often respond fastest to a plumping, filling formula rather than a heavy cream. Expression lines and structural aging (crow's feet, loss of firmness) — this is where peptides and, for the more advanced cases, retinoids come in.
It would be rare these days for a high-quality eye cream not to at least touch on most of these a little, but they will all lean into one main concern more than the others. Unfortunately, an eye cream that is equally awesome at every concern only looks good on paper and typically is either irritating or ineffective. Focus on your big concern when choosing.
Not sure which one is you?
Browse my big list below or reply to this email and tell me what bothers you most about your under-eye area, or text me a makeup-free selfie at (803) 341-7809 - I'll match you to the right one instead of making you guess (wink).
xoxo, Katt
|
