What Actually Works For Treating Dark Circles?

Dark circles. Whether they come from your genetics, your skin tone, or just a bad night’s (or bad year’s) sleep, these unwanted half-moons can give you serious I woke up like this vibes in the worst way possible.

Luckily, you don’t have to deal with dark circles or simply try to cover them up with some concealer. Here are some products and tricks that can actually help you ditch the raccoon-chic look for good.

Understanding Dark Circles and Other Eye Concerns

In order to effectively treat your dark circles, your first have to understand what’s causing them - and other common eye conditions - in the first place

Usually, people have three main complaints about their eye area: purple color (aka dark circles), puffiness, and expression lines or wrinkles. And it’s important to distinguish between the three and nail down your specific concerns. No eye cream will treat all three, and if you don’t really know what you’re fighting against or what to do, you’ll have a much harder time doing things that work.

Dark Circles

Though most people attribute dark circles to fatigue or lack of sleep, there are actually various factors that can contribute to this condition:

• Fatigue: Sleep deprivation can cause your skin to look dull and pale, allowing darker blood vessels and tissues to show through.
• Age: As you get older, your skin begins to thin and you lose a lot of your fat and collagen in the face. All of this can exacerbate the appearance of dark circles.
• Eye strain: Straining your eyes by looking at the computer or television can actually cause surrounding blood vessels to enlarge, causing a blue or purple hue.
• Allergies: When you have an allergic reaction - known to cause itchy, watery eyes - your body releases histamine. These histamines cause your blood vessels to dilate, thereby increasing the appearance of undereye circles.
• Dehydration:When your body doesn’t have enough fluid, it can give your skin a sunken appearance, which can exacerbate the appearance of circles.
• Genetics:Finally, some of us are just predisposed to dark circles, and they’ll continue to get worse as we age (bummer).

Puffiness

Eye puffiness or bags under the eyes can occur throughout your life - but it typically gets worse as you age. It’s caused by:

• Fluid retention, especially upon waking or after a salty meal
• Lack of sleep
• Allergies
• Smoking
• Heredity factors

Expression lines

Finally, there are expression lines, fine lines, and crow’s feet. These are a natural result of aging, although external factors like smoking, pollution, sun damage, or free radical damage can certainly make them appear more quickly and more dramatically.

Now, despite what a lot of eye cream marketing will tell you, there is no one ingredient that’ll effectively tackle all three concerns.

What Works For Dark Circles

When it comes to effectively treating dark circles, you want ingredients and practices that can minimize their appearance by hydrating, plumping, and brightening the under-eyes.

Let’s take a closer look at each of those categories and ingredients that work within them:

Hydrating Ingredients

First, you want to look for ingredients that will deliver deep moisture and seal that moisture in for real, skin-plumping hydration. That includes hyaluronic acid, squalane, and cocoa butter.

Hyaluronic acid

Hyaluronic acid is a glycosaminoglycan (that’s a mouthful!) - a powerful substance found naturally in your skin. It acts as a humectant, meaning that it draws moisture from its surrounding environment. And it’s extremely effective: just one gram (0.03oz) of hyaluronic acid can hold up to six liters of water, and it’s capable of binding 1,800 times its own weight in water - whoa!For your delicate eye area, that means effective, non-comedogenic hydration in the deepest layers of the skin. Exactly what you need.

Squalane

Squalaneis the stabilized version of squalene, an oil found in sebum (as well as in olives, rice bran, sugarcane, and shark liver - Eight Saints uses sustainably sourced squalane from olive oil).

This oil plays a huge role in your natural ability to moisturize your skin and is particularly effective at preventing transdermal moisture loss. Why do you need to apply it to your skin if your body already produces it? Young, healthy skin produces sebum with 10-13% squalene. That percentage begins to decline in your 20's. It can get all the way down to 5% (or lower) once you hit your 50's, which causes dry skin and exacerbates signs of aging.

For dark circles, squalane can help moisturize and keep that moisture in, thereby decreasing the appearance of lines and revealing supple, healthier undereye skin.

Cocoa Butter

With a melting point near body temperature, this naturally derived ingredient helps to retain moisture by providing a permeable barrier on the skin. This both seals moisture in and protects sensitive skin from airborne pollutants.

We’ve done our homework, and we only use ingredients that really work. That’s why you can find all three hydrating ingredients in All In Eye Cream here.

Brightening Ingredients

As we mentioned, dark circles can be caused both by thinner skin and by increased pigment due to either skin tone or sun exposure.

While hydration can largely address the thin skin, it doesn’t do much for the pigmentation besides help improve overall skin health. To visibly brighten skin, then, you also need effective topical lightening agents and antioxidants like:

Vitamin C

This MVP is a potent antioxidant that reduces signs of aging, repairs damaged skin, accelerates collagen synthesis, and corrects hyperpigmentation.

Specifically, by fighting free radicals and photo-damage, vitamin C effectively brightens skin tone by reducing any dark spots or hyperpigmentation.

You'll find it in Eight Saints products like Cloud Whip and Seeking C as Sodium Ascorbyl Phosphate (SAP). This is the most stable form of vitamin C - it will never oxidize or decrease in effectiveness with time. It easily penetrates the skin, unlike ascorbic acid (a popular version that many brands use) which is not easily absorbed

MSM

MSM is a natural compound found in all living things. Formed organically from carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur, it is the “glue” in our bodies that holds together our amino acid chains (the base of our body tissue).

It’s known for inhibiting the breakdown of collagen, reducing inflammation, and making the cell wall more permeable, thereby helping vital nutrients flow through. When it comes to eye cream, specifically, these properties give MSM the ability to help brighten the dull skin around the eyes while correcting hyperpigmentation.

Green Tea

Used topically, green tea has been shown to decrease inflammation, reduce the number of sunburn cells, and protect cells from UV damage. If that’s not enough, the catechins and polyphenols in green tea have also been known to fight free radical damage and protect against the five most common environmental toxins (pesticide, smoking, mycotoxin, polychlorinated biphenyls, and arsenic) thereby toning the skin and reducing signs of aging - win!

You can find green tea antioxidants in the All In eye cream, too!

Raspberry Seed Oil

Raspberry seed oil can absorb UV rays, making it an unexpectedly effective sunscreen. It’s also rich in vitamin A, vitamin E, and essential fatty acids - all of which make it great for your body and your skin! (If you’re interested, you can find out about other superfruits in skincare here).

Vitamin E

Vitamin E (or tocopherol) is a natural component of healthy skin. While it’s often overshadowed by trendy newcomer ingredients, this powerful (yet gentle!) antioxidant is great for all-around skincare. It can effectively defend the skin by neutralizing free radicals caused by pollution and other environmental stressors. This strengthens, tightens, and firms skin over time - oh, and it adds moisture too!

Sunscreen

Photodamage is the number one cause of physical aging on the skin - so dark spots and wrinkles around the eyes are going to continue to pop up if you don’t invest in some SPF.

Plumping Ingredients

Moisturizers

These ingredients certainly have some overlap with the “hydrating” ingredients - a moisturized face is a more plump face, after all - but there are some differentiating points here as well.

The most overlap you’ll see, of course, is with the hydrating ingredients like hyaluronic acid, squalane, and cocoa butter. These will help fill fine lines and decrease the visibility of dark circles as they hydrate the skin.

Antioxidants

Antioxidants combat oxidative stress, which is huge. Stress and the free radicals it produces break down collagen and get in the way of the skin’s natural repair process. That triggers inflammation, fine lines, and loose skin. By scavenging free radicals, antioxidants prevent this damage and allow your skin to heal and recuperate.

Peptides

Peptides are proteins found naturally in skin that communicate with cells to trigger collagen production. Our skin is primarily comprised of collagen, which breaks down as we age. When topical skin care peptides are applied, they signal your body to produce new collagen.

This minimizes wrinkles and plumps skin. All In and Night Shift gel moisturizer contains the anti-aging peptide Matrixyl 30000, composed of 2 proteins that trigger the formation of several important skin components, including elastin and collagen.

And Finally - Consider the Rest of Your Routine

The reality is that you could have the best, most effective skincare in the world and it just won’t be effective if the rest of your habits sabotage your efforts. If you really want to tackle those dark circles, we recommend that you also:

• Get more sleep:The cheapest, most effective way to tackle dark circles is by making sure that you have a regular sleep routine and that you get at least 7-8 hours of sleep per night.
• Consider antihistamines:Many people have darkness under their eyes due to allergies, and they may not even know it! An antihistamine can help address this common concern right off the bat.
• Hydrate:If you’re dehydrated, your skin won’t be properly moisturized no matter how much hyaluronic acid you apply. A good rule of thumb is to drink half your weight in ounces of water every day. If you weigh 140 pounds, for example, you should be drinking about 70 ounces of water a day.
• Apply something cooling:Applying something cool can help constrict swollen under-eye vessels, temporarily reducing any under-eye circles. You can try cucumber, a gel eye mask, or - our favorite - some cold green tea bags. The caffeine in the tea will get your circulation flowing while the cool temperature will provide an extra anti-inflammatory kick.

Incorporate these ingredients and tips, and you’ll be looking bright-eyed in no time! Bye-bye, dark circles!