Dark Circles - Gone For Good!

I started seek­ing an under-eye cir­cle solu­tion as soon as I was old enough to real­ize I had these hered­i­tary lit­tle nuggets.

At age 15, I started wear­ing con­cealer and if I didn’t, I would invari­ably get a ques­tion like, “Oh my good­ness, are you sick?” No, but thanks for the con­cern, that’s just the veins show­ing through my incred­i­bly pale, thin under-eye skin thanky­ou­very­much! Then at 19, I dis­cov­ered that der­ma­tol­o­gists and plas­tic sur­geons were able to cor­rect cer­tain types of under-eye cir­cles with lasers. I went for a few con­sul­ta­tions, and one doc­tor wanted to inject ass fat under my eyes to thicken the skin a bit. No thanks. Another doc­tor sug­gested Resty­lane to fill in the area just above the veins so they wouldn’t show through. Uh, no again. Espe­cially since the injec­tion meth­ods would have been risky to my eye­sight (the nee­dles are fine and can acci­den­tally be injected into a vein, which could lead into your eye, which could cause tem­po­rary or per­ma­nent vision problems).

So I finally set­tled on my der­ma­tol­o­gist, who was reg­u­larly using laser to close off lit­tle veins. I was her very first under-eye cir­cle patient. Now, there are many veins sur­round­ing the eye, and I wanted to get rid of the more obvi­ous ones so that I didn’t appear sick or beat-up. What the laser would accom­plish is clos­ing off the more obvi­ous veins, where­upon they would re-route them­selves deeper under the skin.

The laser pro­ce­dure was pretty sim­ple. In the room were two assis­tants, my der­ma­tol­o­gist, my mom, and, of course, me — lay­ing quite still on the reclin­ing med­ical chair and crack­ing jokes to remain calm. The assis­tants expertly cov­ered my eye­balls with gog­gles and gels so the doc­tor could still get at the under-eye area but not acci­den­tally hit my eye. Then the laser com­menced to snap at my under-eye area like a rub­ber­band for approx­i­mately 5 min­utes on each eye. Mostly it didn’t hurt. The next day, the area was slightly swollen, and remained that way for a few days. After the swelling went down, I was really happy to see that I had no more super-obvious under-eye circles.

For sev­eral years now, no one has asked me if I’m tired or sick (even if I don’t have con­cealer on). Nowa­days, the only time my cir­cles are dark is when I failed at sleep or haven’t been eat­ing enough greens. ;) But I want to be clear that I only had the laser under my eyes, and it worked on the more obvi­ous vein under each eye, but you can still see the blood under my eyes because I’m so pale and the skin is so thin there.

If your cir­cles are com­pletely hered­i­tary and sim­ply involve vein show-through because of your skin pig­ment (the skin under the eyes in already super thin for women, not quite as thin for men), then I would rec­om­mend check­ing into laser treat­ments if the meth­ods given below don’t work first (I would have tried these other meth­ods first had I known about them…alas, I do them now to make my under-eye area look extra nice and pre­vent hav­ing to do the laser again).

All right, so let’s get to it.

• The first step in get­ting rid of your under eye cir­cles is know­ing the cause.

• The sec­ond is get­ting rid of them from the inside out.

• The third and final step is dis­guis­ing them while they dis­ap­pear from your face fore­vah­hhh…(this info will be in the Follow-Up post, com­ing in the next few days).

YOUR UNDER-EYE CIRCLE TYPE

If your under-eye cir­cles have a blue or pur­ple cast, they are caused by vein and blood show-through. They may even look green­ish if your skin has warm tones to it.

If your under-eye cir­cles have a yel­low or brown cast, they are caused by hyper­pig­men­ta­tion (sun dam­age), lack of sleep, aller­gies, or a com­bi­na­tion of the afore­men­tioned items.

If your under-eye cir­cles appear to have a deep line and/or are quite dark, this is most likely due to adrenal fatigue or lack of sleep, or a pos­si­ble tear trough deformity.

YOUR UNDER-EYE CIRCLE FIX-IT PLAN

Blue or pur­ple:
1. Use Vit­a­min K top­i­cally and inter­nally. Vit­a­min K pro­motes healthy blood clot­ting, which means less under-eye blood ves­sel leak­age and there­fore, greatly dimin­ished under-eye cir­cles. Look for a qual­ity, nat­ural top­i­cal vit­a­min K cream. But most impor­tantly, eat more greens — kale, spinach, swiss chard, pars­ley, mus­tard and turnip greens, broc­coli, aspara­gus, and romaine let­tuce. All it takes is 1 cup of any of those greens to get your daily dose. Just steam it and eat it as a side dish with any meal. No need to buy any expen­sive sup­ple­ments either. Easy, eh?

2. Apply Retinol top­i­cally. Retinol is sim­ply vit­a­min A. It exists in many foods, and is essen­tial for blood ves­sel health, and is said to be ben­e­fi­cial to wrin­kles and var­i­ous skin issues such as acne. You may buy a qual­ity, nat­ural retinol cream (don’t by a synethic retinol or creams with junk ingre­di­ents) for your eyes, and also eat foods rich in the pre­cu­sors to vit­a­min A — fun­nily enough, they are the same foods that are listed above which con­tain high amounts of vit­a­min K. See? Food that gets rid of under-eye circles…I love that.

3. Take Vit­a­min C. Vit­a­min C is the body­guard for our skin and blood ves­sels. The best form is from a whole-food source, so eat more sweet and non-sweet fruits. My favorite vit­a­min C sup­ple­ment is Health Force Nutri­tion­als acerola cherry vit­a­min C pow­der. I take 2 tsp. in water mixed with 2 Tbsp. of raw honey about an hour or so before bed­time. Yum!

4. Green smooth­ies. Remem­ber those greens men­tioned above? You don’t have to steam them or eat them alone if you don’t like the taste. What I like to do some­times is make “green smooth­ies” — deli­cious blends of fruits and greens, where you taste all the sweet fruit and none of the greens (but you get all the ben­e­fit, what a good deal). So just take that 1 cup of any leafy green men­tioned above (broc­coli and aspara­gus are NOT a good idea here) and throw them in your next fruit smoothie. For more infor­ma­tion on green smooth­ies, I highly rec­om­mend Vic­to­ria Boutenko’s book, Green for Life.

5. Horse Chest­nut and Butcher’s Broom. This is a power-packed duo with supreme blood ves­sel repair and strength­en­ing pow­ers. Only con­sider tak­ing them if the above 4 steps haven’t made a dif­fer­ence in 4–6 weeks, then pro­ceed to take them both together. Fol­low direc­tions on the bot­tle and know that it may take up to 3 months to see any results, but hang in there! I always rec­om­mend tak­ing herbs in tinc­ture or elixir form, as they are best absorbed this way. One brand I rec­om­mend is Cedar Bear Nat­u­rales Butcher’s Broom Root. Horse Chest­nut can be a bit harder to find, but be sure to grab it in alco­hol tinc­ture form.

6. Be very gen­tle. No tug­ging or rub­bing of the under-eye area. This may cause more blood to leak and pool there as a result of dam­age. So use your ring fin­ger or a soft brush to apply con­cealer, and dab creams on gen­tly with your ring finger.

7. No refined sugar. Instead of bak­ing with white sugar and eat­ing stuff with var­i­ous refined sug­ars in it (doesn’t mat­ter how organic the sugar is, it’s still sugar), replace it with raw honey, ste­via, xyl­i­tol, molasses, or even maple syrup. Refined sugar causes inflam­ma­tion, adrenal fatigue, and weight gain, so avoid it for your health and avoid it to get rid of your circles.

8. No cof­fee. I’m seri­ous about this one. Caf­feine is a skin killer, since it dehy­drates you and taxes your adrenal glands, both of which cause under-eye dark­en­ing and crappy com­plex­ions. Drink­ing it for energy? Increase your energy by sleep­ing well (see related post: Get Nat­u­rally Beau­ti­ful in One Night) and even sup­ple­ment­ing with ginseng.

9. Drink plenty of water. This is such a bor­ing tip because every­one says it — but I can’t help that it’s true. You absolutely need water to help flush away waste from your cells and keep your skin hydrated and plump. Plump, dewy, hydrated skin = less notice­able under-eye circles.

10. Move your body. Exer­cise reg­u­lates and increases cir­cu­la­tion, so you don’t end up with stag­nat­ing pools of blood, espe­cially the ones under your eyes. Try yoga, pilates, or just plain stretch­ing for a cir­cu­la­tion boost (espe­cially good for morn­ing pick-me-ups).

11. Ease sinus con­ges­tion. Some doc­tors the­o­rize that dark cir­cles like these may be attrib­uted to sinus con­ges­tion or pres­sure. You can alle­vi­ate this by get­ting a qual­ity air fil­ter, a few great house­plants to fil­ter and clean the air, and even try a Neti pot to man­u­ally cleanse your sinuses.

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Yel­low or brown:
1. Get more proper sleep (see related post: Get Nat­u­rally Beau­ti­ful in One Night).

2. Use a top­i­cal light­en­ing treat­ment. Get a qual­ity, nat­ural cream made for bright­en­ing and light­en­ing under-eye dis­col­oration. This will be very impor­tant to treat­ing your type of cir­cles, so be sure it’s a good one!

3. No refined sugar. This is espe­cially impor­tant for your cir­cle type. So instead of bak­ing with white sugar and eat­ing stuff with var­i­ous refined sug­ars in it (doesn’t mat­ter how organic the sugar is, it’s still sugar), replace it with raw honey, ste­via, xyl­i­tol, molasses, or even maple syrup. Refined sugar causes inflam­ma­tion, adrenal fatigue, and weight gain, so avoid it for your health and avoid it to get rid of your circles.

4. No cof­fee. I’m seri­ous about this one. Caf­feine is a skin killer, since it dehy­drates you and taxes your adrenal glands, both of which cause under-eye dark­en­ing and crappy com­plex­ions. Drink­ing it for energy? Increase your energy by sleep­ing well (see related post: Get Nat­u­rally Beau­ti­ful in One Night) and even sup­ple­ment­ing with gin­seng.

5. Drink plenty of water. This is such a bor­ing tip because every­one says it — but I can’t help that it’s true. You absolutely need water to help flush away waste from your cells and keep your skin hydrated and plump. Plump, dewy, hydrated skin = less notice­able under-eye circles.

6. Take 1/4 tsp. of local bee pollen per day (or fresh bee pollen from Y.S. Farms) to help get rid of aller­gies and allergy under-eye cir­cles. You can work up to 1 Tbsp. per day (I’ve gone up to 5 Tbsp. – you can’t over­dose, but you do have to take it slow to pre­vent any reac­tions). Also con­sider pur­chas­ing an air filter.

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Deeply Lined and/or Very Dark:
1. Get more proper sleep (see related post: Get Nat­u­rally Beau­ti­ful in One Night).

2. Drink plenty of water. This is such a bor­ing tip because every­one says it — but I can’t help that it’s true. You absolutely need water to help flush away waste from your cells and keep your skin hydrated and plump. Plump, dewy, hydrated skin = less notice­able under-eye circles.

3. Eat (or drink) more greens. Vit­a­min K and Vit­a­min A are both present in high amounts in leafy greens. Both nutri­ents pro­mote healthy blood ves­sels, healthy skin, and a healthy, func­tion­ing body. Your cir­cles indi­cate a gen­eral lack of excel­lent health, so greens will help you very quickly, and with very lit­tle expense. Steam 1 cup of any one of the fol­low­ing greens: kale, spinach, swiss chard, pars­ley, mus­tard and turnip greens, broc­coli, aspara­gus, or romaine let­tuce. Again, all it takes is 1 cup of any of those greens to get your daily dose. You can also throw a hand­ful of them into a fruit smoothie for none of the taste and all of the nutrition.

4. No refined sugar. This is espe­cially impor­tant for your cir­cle type. So instead of bak­ing with white sugar and eat­ing stuff with var­i­ous refined sug­ars in it (doesn’t mat­ter how organic the sugar is, it’s still sugar), replace it with raw honey, ste­via, xyl­i­tol, molasses, or even maple syrup. Refined sugar causes inflam­ma­tion, adrenal fatigue, and weight gain, so avoid it for your health and avoid it to get rid of your circles.

5. No cof­fee. I’m seri­ous about this one. Caf­feine is a skin killer, since it dehy­drates you and taxes your adrenal glands, both of which cause under-eye dark­en­ing and crappy com­plex­ions. Drink­ing it for energy? Increase your energy by sleep­ing well (see related post: Get Nat­u­rally Beau­ti­ful in One Night) and even sup­ple­ment­ing with ginseng.

6. Relax. Stress fatigues your adren­als – but don’t let that stress you out! You can man­age stress eas­ily. Here are a few easy tips in my post on stay­ing stress-free.

7. Fill them in. Deeply lined cir­cles may be caused by a tear trough defor­mity, which is a space in the mus­cle between the cheek and nose. A qual­i­fied der­ma­tol­o­gist or cos­metic sur­geon will be able to cor­rect the prob­lem by fill­ing in the space with a filler. Go with fat as your filler — your doc­tor can take it from, say, your butt or thigh, pre­pare it prop­erly, and insert it into the hol­low. And voila! No more deep, dark cir­cles for you.

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*Cue the music*

Stay tuned for the next install­ment of…dun dun dun…hiding those cir­cles while the above tips and tricks are get­ting rid of them! The follow-up post will be full of good advice on con­ceal­ing cir­cles, along with a few prod­uct reviews.

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By the way, I did a lit­tle research on nat­ural top­i­cal creams, and I’ve shared some of the results with you below (that should get you started). Let me know if you have any suggestions!

Nat­ural Retinol Creams:
Lotus Moo Retinol
MyChelle Firm­ing Serum

Nat­ural Vit­a­min C Creams:
MyChelle Per­fect C Serum
Talu­lah Vio­let Leaf Eye Renewal Gel

Nat­ural Skin Brighteners/Lighteners:
100% Pure Acai Berry Eye Cream
Suki Bright­en­ing Serum

And in gen­eral, you can also check out Epi­curen. I have used their prod­ucts pre­vi­ously and really liked them, but I’m not sure of their cur­rent ingre­di­ent sta­tus, so be sure to read the label before you buy one of their var­i­ous Retinol, Vit­a­min C, or Light­en­ing products.

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ONE LAST TIP…

If you’ve tried all the tips sug­gested for your under-eye cir­cle type, and after 3–4 months you still see ZERO results, then con­sider a laser option like I did. Just be sure to do your research on laser types/methods, go on a few con­sul­ta­tions, and choose a good doc­tor that has a good track record and knows what he/she is doing (mean­ing: they didn’t just go to some week­end sem­i­nar to learn how to wield a laser).

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Con­tinue Read­ing Dark Cir­cles – Gone For Good! Part II…

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