Do you ever find that despite getting your 8 hours of sleep, drinking plenty water and maintaining a healthy diet, those pesky, puffy dark circles still persist? It really can ruin your morning when you wake up and they are the first thing you see when you look in the mirror.
As it turns out, there are a number of reasons as to why we wake up with so-called ‘bags’ and darkness under our eyes, which unfortunately are the biggest cause of looking fatigued even when we we may feel well-rested!
Lack of sleep, diet and stress can all be major contributors to our undereye woes, as well as the way that we sleep. A lack of hydration, as well as poor blood circulation can often be the biggest cause of your tired eyes.
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Why?
Puffiness, put simply, is trapped fluid around the eyes. It can be caused by fatigue, allergies, and crying. If we sleep on a certain side, we lack circulation around the eye to flush out this fluid.
Lack of circulation around the eye is common as the skin is so delicate and thin, meaning there is less flow to move fluid around the area. This also goes for dark circles, which can be trapped blood.
This build up is daily. If affected eyes are not treated or recirculated over time, before you know it, you’ll wake up at 50 years old with enough bags to go around the world and back!
How?
Stimulation and circulation is key for success for the removal and/or reduction of dark circles and puffiness, otherwise they just keep building up until they are too hard to reduce from such a large build up over time.
Some eye creams can help stimulate circulation which contain caffeine, or the new craze of on-the-go roller ball eye gels to help cool and massage the area in the morning.
But the best way is manual stimulation daily, so you never have build up.
Eye Cream and Application
Of course using eye cream of any kind can help the area soften and look more revived, but the texture you choose is key for success.
Morning
I suggest a lighter gel, or cream-gel hydrating texture. This will be absorbed very quickly to give instant results. It will plump, refresh and cool the area, assisting in reduction of puffiness and expression lines.
It is also a great makeup base, it has less residue, so your concealer can have better longevity.
Evening
This is the time to use richer, nourishing cream based eye creams. At night, our skin is at rest. So it has more time to absorb the richer formula to give comfort, ready for the morning. If you already have a lot of puffiness, richer textures, if over-used, can create more puffiness, so less is best!
These oil based, rich eye creams are not as good under makeup, as it can create a slip that products can fall into.
Application
No matter what eye product texture you use, you always use a dabbing motion and apply with your ring finger, as it is a softer touch with less nerve endings. The dabbing application should start from inside to out. By starting inside, you are assisting in the draining of trapped fluid.
It’s best to start on the upper outer eye, then travel inward, move to lower inner eye, then dab to outer. This is a great way to create manual stimulation for circulation and helps flush away unwanted trapped fluid. Doing this daily, a minute each eye is the best way to avoid build up of ‘bags’.
MB PRO TIP:
When you go to a facial, they do a piano-like dabbing movement on the eye area, inwards to outwards. It’s all about drainage, releasing trapped blood and fluid for the freshest eyes possible, which can be easily replicated at home on a daily basis.
Makeup
The biggest mistake women make is using the wrong shade of concealer to correct a dark circle. Usually it is too light and this makes the area look grey.
– Don’t match your concealer to your face shade. A dark circle has a blue/green/purple undertone, so it needs an entirely different shade tone. Usually a peach to yellow for pale skin and a yellow to orange base for olive skin.
– Puffiness also needs a slightly deeper shade to correct and recede the area, otherwise using the same shade as your face or a lighter shade will make it stand out. Don’t highlight a puff, correct it by going deeper with concealer.
– When applying, only apply on the area where the concern actually is. Too many apply out to the outer eye area and age ourselves when the product creeps into our ‘crows feet’. We should only apply where needed; less is best when it comes to areas on the face that have movement.
-Once the area is corrected, use the ‘double concealer’ trick. Colour correct first to reduce concern, then highlight over the top to brighten and lift the area. The deeper shades used to correct either dark circles or puffiness is great to counter-act the problem, but they can appear dull. Use a brighter concealer over the top and you will see the area lift instantly.
– For puffiness, don’t use the highlight directly on the puffiness. Only directly underneath it, where the shadow is. This will lift forward the shadow, appearing more in line with the puffy area, creating the appearance of balance.
MB PRO TIP:
You cannot brighten the under eye area until you correct the concerns you have. Highlight and shade play a big part in creating illusions of a more lifted eye look.
So ladies, prep with the right eye texture, always dab your eye cream in a circular movement, inwards to out to drain away excess fluids and use a deeper shade of concealer to correct, then finish with some highlight! BOOM, ready to rock!
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