How To Get Rid of Dark Under Eye Circles

Why Does This Happen?

Because I'm a huge nerd, I'd like to explain some of the eye anatomy in order to help understand why dark circles under the eyes occur. Your eye ball is placed into what we call the eye socket or formally speaking orbit. Within the orbit, there are a bunch of nerves, vessels, fat and other important structures. Now the skin surrounding our eyes is actually only about 1/2 mm thick, which makes it much easier to see the blood vessels underneath your eyes. When those blood vessels underneath your eyes become inflamed or larger for whatever cause, the dark circles become darker and more pronounced

As we "mature" the skin around our eyes in particular becomes thinner and looser, which results in the increased appearance of those blood vessels underneath—> dark eye circles

Now this phenomenon happens to everyone as we age, but the amount and degree that it becomes noticeable varies from individual to individual. It depends on several factors

1. Genetics - if your parents or other immediate family members have dark circles, you are at greater risk of forming them

2. Allergies - I think everyone has at least heard of or recognize allergic shiners (or the dark circles under the eyes from allergies). This occurs primarily from eye irritation and rubbing that leads to inflammation of those blood vessels below the eyes

3. Lifestyle factors

   • Lack of adequate sleep - fairly obvious

   • Dehydration - congestion of the blood vessels

   • Smoking + Sun exposure - carcinogens and UV rays damage skin which further increases the thinning of the skin leading to circles

How To Fix This?

So now that we know a little bit about some of the reasons why dark circles may form under the eyes, it's easy to correlate what we can do to fix them

1. Achieve proper control of your allergies.

   • If you believe you may suffer from allergies, please visit your local health care provider so they may help you get them under control

2. Manage lifestyle factors

   • Sleep

     • Try to get adequate sleep at a minimum 7-9 hours every night

   • Stop smoking

   • Wear sunscreen—> reducing UV rays causing skin damage around the eye)

Those are the two major categories of what you want to do first. There are other alternative measures you can take as well

1. Cold spoons

   • Constricts blood vessels to reduce inflammation and push the fluid away from your eyes

2. Brew green tea and cool it in the fridge. Apply with a cotton ball for about 5 minutes

   • Works similarly as the cold spoons, but the addition of caffeine helps to augment additional blood vessel constriction

3. Eye cream/skin care routine

   • Ladies, taking off makeup before bed every night

   • If you're interested in other products that may be helpful, I can do specific reviews of these in future posts