If you’re staring at tired-looking eyes with fine lines and excess puffiness, best you invest in an eye cream says editor Trudi Brewer. She shares the best beauty hacks and products on TV3's The Cafe.
Editor Trudi Brewer with host Melanie Homer on TV3's The Cafe.
It’s my skincare desert island product, and here’s why. A daily dose of eye cream will hydrate, plump and smooth the skin under the eyes to cleverly decongest, drain and tighten this thin and super delicate skin. Here are my favourite beauty hacks on how to use your eye cream to its full potential.
The eye creams we rate
Clinique Moisture Surge Eye 96-Hour Hydro-Filler Concentrate, $79.
This new gel-like serum has an instant tightening effect on the skin, and long term it boosts hydration for hours. The blend of coconut oil- infused aloe leaf water, and clever "auto-replenishing lipid-sphere technology", which is encapsulated vitamins E and C (the tiny suspended pink and green balls floating in the gel), flood the skin with moisture. Then long term the rice extract, green tea and cucumber, caffeine, algae extracts, and niacinamide (vitamin B3) to name only a few anti-ageing ingredients smooth and improve the delicate skin under the eyes. The brand says it promises 96-hours of hydration - I can hand-on-heart say I got at least 12 hours of the wrinkle-smoothing benefits this gel has to offer.
Nourish and cover
Mix a tiny amount of eye cream with your concealer, it helps hydrate and prime the under eye area, also cutting down on concealer creasing and sitting in fine lines, while helping your makeup to last longer.
Neutrogena Rapid Wrinkle Repair Anti-Ageing Eye Cream, $41.
Hands down this is the best eye cream you can buy at the supermarket. Stacked with a complex the brand calls 'accelerated retinol SA' it’s a blend of stabilised retinol, glucose and hyaluronic acid that together help fade the look of fine lines and brown spots. It’s also allergy tested, and oil-free.
Kate Somerville Wrinkle Warrior Visible Dark Circle Eraser, $103.
The eponymously named brand of the famous Hollywood facialist, Kate Somerville, has created an eye cream that does it all. This whisper-light gel will help to treat dark circles, fine lines, wrinkles, and puffiness. It has the texture of a gel and the hydrating ability of a cream. Hydrating and brightening around the eyes with the blend of yeast, plankton, white lupine, and alfalfa extracts, and different size molecules of hyaluronic acid ( that instantly hydrates the surface of the skin, and penetrates deeper into the skin to help plump out fine lines and wrinkles) one word - magic.
The natural approach
Pressing a steeped cool tea bag on the eyes to calm puffiness is no beauty myth. The caffeine in tea constricts blood vessels, while the tannins reduce inflammation. Slices of chilled cucumber or crushed ice wrapped in a muslin cloth are also soothing, this trick stimulates lymphatic drainage and reduces swelling.
Korres Black Pine Antiwrinkle, Firming & Lifting Eye Cream
$93.
Homeopathic, beauty brand Korres comes from Greek heritage with olive extracts the base of all their skincare including this lifting eye treatment. Hydrating thanks to black pine extract that reduces inflammation, which for anyone with puffy eyes - this will be music to your ears.
Only apply eye cream around the eye area
Heavy face creams and oils are too thick for the delicate eye area where the skin is the thinnest (one reason it shows the first signs of ageing). Always invest in a specific eye gel or cream and apply it using your ring finger (this has the lightest touch) by patting it around the orbital bone, and just below the brow bone exist.
Shiseido Benefiance WrinkleResist24 Intensive Eye Contour Cream, $98.
This is known as a pot of gold in beauty circles, simply for the way it smooths the appearance of wrinkles. The brand says crows feet, corner creases, under eye wrinkles, lid creases, and vertical lines, will not stand a chance against this cream. And how does it do this I hear you ask? With a blend of powerful antioxidant plant extracts including firming chlorella extract, (found in sea algae), and Mukurossi extract (from the Indian soapberry tree), and gambir extract, an anti-allergy extract (found in a climbing shrub native to tropical Southeast Asia) together these ingredients calms puffiness and smooth fine lines.
Why use eye cream over a daily moisturiser?
Eye creams are almost always fragrance-free, which cuts out possible irritation, while the active ingredients appear in lower concentrations, which are also less irritating to the delicate skin under the eyes. Some quick fix ingredients, (such as caffeine) offer temporary fixes to problems specific to the eye area, and the molecules of these ingredients are small enough to penetrate quickly into that thin skin under the eyes.
Burt’s Bees Sensitive Eye Cream, $28.
Sadly sensitive skin and puffy eyes go hand in hand. Opt for a natural eye cream that calms and corrects irritation. This travel-friendly pump bottle contains softening cotton extract that works as a shield to potential irritants, while the blend of antioxidant rich white Genepi herb, rice extract, and aloe soothe and brighten the skin under the eye area.
