The Undereye Circle Dilemma

I got a frantic call from a girlfriend today. She was sick and tired of trying eye cream after eye cream, after being repeatedly told by salespeople that this one was "the best", and finding nothing that diminished her undereye circles. Sadly, undereye circles are one of the trickiest beauty problems to combat, and creams can, at best, simply downplay them. There are two causes of undereye circles: 1) thin bluish veins under the eye area show through the thin skin, making the area appear shadowed or 2) the skin itself is hyperpigmented, or darker than the skin around it. In the first scenario, the only remedy is a good concealer. For the second, a product containing gentle skinlightening agents can help. Hydroquinone is the best, and by far the most effective, so I recommend seeing a dermatologist to get the real deal. Hydroquinone is also pretty potent, so it's best used under a dermatologist's supervision. You don't want the reverse problem - hypopigmentation - in which the skin actually loses too much pigment and is lighter than the skin around it. The new anti-darkness eye creams may help in extreme cases, but nothing works for everyone. More on these in subsequent blogs!