Monday Morning Tired Eye Solutions.

So it’s Monday again and while we hoped to awake feeling refreshed and bright eyed after a restful weekend quite often instead we are left hitting the snooze button and are faced with tackling puffy, dark under eyes. So here are my Monday morning solutions to those pesky tired eyes helping you to fool everyone that you are wide awake...how long till the weekend? zzzz. 

Firstly a good eye cream is essential to soothe tired eyes and help to banish dark circles. There are so many eye creams out there depending on your concern and I cannot stress enough how important using an eye cream is on a daily basis to keep the eye area looking fresh and young. The skin around the eyes is so much more delicate than the rest of our skin, imagine it as fine as tracing paper in comparison to the rest of the face hence why it is so transparent and shows every hour of sleep lost. This skin needs a special product, using your regular face cream around the eye area will be much too heavy and over time will cause the skin to loose firmness and so speed up the aging process. The eye area is the first place we begin to show our age and most fine lines are due to dehydration so it is important to keep the area well hydrated. I recommend the Kiehls Creamy Eye Treatment with Avocado, it has a wonderfully creamy texture and yet feels light on the skin. Avocado is packed full of goodness and hosts Vitamins C, E and K to brighten and condition, antioxidants to encourage drainage of toxins around the eye area and Omega 9 Fatty Acids to nourish and plump. I use this eye cream every evening and it also works perfectly as a morning pick me up for tired eyes. Apply a small amount using your ring finger for a gentle pressure to the orbital bone, you will be able to feel this bone as it lifts out from the eye socket and into your cheeks usually about 3cm away from the lower lash line. Putting your eye cream in the right place is so important to avoid any sensitivity, an eye cream will travel to where it needs to be and so should never be applied directly under the eye and rarely can be taken over the lid. Another good eye cream which is much lighter in texture and best for those solely concerned with dark circles and puffiness is the Active 7 Radiant Eye Gel from REN. This beauty cools and refreshes the eye area, it is amazing when left in the fridge for those who really suffer with puffiness. It contains anti-inflammatory ingredients such as rose water and arnica, both will encourage the drainage of toxins around the eye area and banish darkness. I find half a pump of this to be ample for both eyes. 

Now the real quick life saver is of course concealer, this will instantly make your eyes look brighter and hide any evidence of the weekend in one full sweep. Always apply your eye cream first, the biggest devil with under eye concealing is that when applied to a dehydrated eye area it will cling to any dry skin and sit in fine lines which can in fact draw more attention to the problems we are trying so desperately to hide- argh! The first step is correcting, this works using a peculiar shade of concealer, usually a peach tone which will correct any discoloration under the eye. I would recommend this to 90% of my clients, most of us need to correct something whether it be blueness- commonly found in the inner corner of the eye, purple tones that contribute to dark circles or some of us can be very yellow which can make us look a little bit ill. I am not going to bore you all with colour theory but in a nutshell: for blueness use a peach corrector, purple/brown tones usually found in warmer complexions use a light pink corrector, for redness- green tones and yellowness can be counteracted using a lilac corrector. I recommend Bobbi Brown Correctors, also MAC Pro Conceal and Correct Palettes are very good for those of you who find discoloration under the eye varies in tone as each palette comes with 6 shades including 4 concealer shades, perfect for any fake tan fanatics to cover a broad spectrum of shades to cover all your summer/winter skin. Apply your corrector where needed with a brush starting at the inner corner and sweeping to the outer edge of the eye. Then you must apply your concealer on top in a shade that matches your skin tone, this is so important, if you were to just leave your corrector you would get some very strange looks for sure! I love the ByTerry Touche Veloutee, designed by the make up artist who developed YSL’s iconic Touche Eclat it is a pimped up version of it’s predecessor. It is less highlighting and so unlikely to cause the dreaded flash back reverse panda eye and I find it to be so much more concealing. It comes in a click top pen and so can be brushed immediately onto the eye area and patted in with fingers. This is amazing to keep in your handbag to brighten your make up throughout the day when tiredness kicks in, it also contains rose extracts and so smells really pretty and fresh. A more budget buy alternative is the Rimmel Wake Me Up Concealer which is pretty fab and competes pretty well with concealers 4x it’s price, impressive! 

Hope that helps, enjoy cheating a bright eye even on your earliest mornings!

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