Our eyes use a number of muscles to make around 10,000 movements a day, gathering the skin in their vicinity as we smile, squint or widen them in recognition or surprise. Add in the fact the skin is thinner and more sensitive around them and it’s not surprising the area is one of the first to display the signs of age, emotion, allergies or exhaustion.
So yes, despite the divisive nature of eye cream, experts suggest you will benefit from its dedicated use over just blending an extra dab of moisturiser on to your lids and calling it a day.
We all want a magic eraser to lift dark circles, depuff bags, firm the area and soften fine lines, but most are more targeted than that, working to either produce faster results like minimising the evidence of a big night out or one crying into your pillow, while others work in the long term treating the likes dryness and minimising loss of collagen and crinkle wrinkles.
Each of these new eye creams and treatments claims to intensively target the eye area with a number of different talents.
Dermalogica Awaken Peptide Eye Gel
Feeling tired and bleary eyed and it’s showing? This cooling eye gel, perfect at both ends of the day, is instantly soothing and features caffeine to gently depuff by draining the stubborn eye area. What’s more, advanced peptides – key in many emerging skincare releases – are used to assist the short and long-term look of your eye area.
“Peptides are made up of chains of amino acids, the building blocks of certain proteins such as collagen and elastin,” explains Dermalogica’s Director of Education for Asia Pacific, Emma Hobson. “They are responsible for skin texture, strength, and resilience. We need peptides to keep our skin feeling firm, plump and keep wrinkles and loose skin at bay.”
Rosemary Leaf Extract and a bioengineered Succinic Acid blend also help soothe and deal to puffiness, dark circles, and fine lines.
Clinique Smart Clinical Repair Wrinkle Correcting Eye Cream
Fine lines your bugbear? This wrinkle-fighting eye cream aims to strengthen, visibly smooth and hydrate your delicate eye-area skin. The dreamy and featherlight cream also calls on a peptide complex as well as hyaluronic acid and something called sigesbeckia orientalis extract, a herb more commonly known as St John’s Wort the brand says is a ‘procollagen extract that helps skin maintain its natural density’.
MAC Lightful C³ Radiant Hydration Tone-Up Eye Cream
Lesser known for its skincare, MAC Cosmetics is doing its best to change that with it’s new Lightful C3 range. A number of products including cleanser, lotion, moisturiser, micellar water and a tinted primer make up the collection, each containing the brand’s complex it calls ‘liquid radiance’, made up of Vitamin C, Cherry Blossom and Coral Grass to nourish, protect and help skin glow. What grabbed us immediately? The Lightful C3 Radiant Hydration Tone-Up Eye Cream, a convincing combination of words for a product name if ever there was one! The luminous, cushiony cream is intended to improve radiance in the eye area instantly and over time as well as strengthen skin and hydrate.
Kora Organics Berry Bright Vitamin C Eye Cream
Far be it for us to suggest the delightfully bling packaging caught our attention, but it totally did! That said, this new eye cream from Miranda Kerr’s Kora Organics is a convincing proposition if natural, organic ingredients are important to you. The vitamin C-focused cream uses kangaroo paw flower, kakadu plum, cloudberry, red ginseng, and quinoa to provide antioxidants for protection against free radicals. If it’s your thing, you might also be intrigued by the inclusion of rose quartz, the brand says is “a stone believed to carry a soothing energy to encourage love and acceptance of ourselves & others.” Refill pods are also available.
Dior Capture Totale Super Potent Eye Serum
More a serum than a cream, using this product is something special thanks to the cooling metal tip meant to gently massage the area as you apply. Formulated to take on the nine signs of aging Dior says can impact the eye area, (a thought that’s vaguely depressing!) it includes ‘biocellular longoza technology’ using the rare longoza flower, said to assist with re-energizing skin, rye extract, for firming and toning and hyaluronic acid.
