The case against eye cream - Paula Begoun

Do you think you need an eye cream?  Do you believe that eye creams are specially formulated to work miracles around your eyes?  Do you think that you can get rid of those dark circles?

Yes?  You may want to read the following article about eye creams from Paula Begoun & the beauty bunch blog. 

Almost every cosmetics company you can think of sells at least one eye cream and many sell more than a dozen, yet no one needs a product specifically labeled as an eye cream! What that means is the cosmetics industry has done an outstanding job convincing women eye creams are essential to eliminate everything from wrinkles to sagging skin, dark circles, and puffiness around the eye.  I’m here to tell you (and Paula has been saying this for years) to call off the search, it is wasting your time and money!

Even the cosmetic companies don’t believe their own claims about what the eye creams they sell can do. If even one eliminated or reduced sagging skin, dark circles, wrinkles, or puffiness why would they need to launch new ones every year making the same promises? In the nearly 11 years that I have been part of The Cosmetics Cop Team, I have received thousands of emails and have yet to receive one from anyone who says the eye cream they are using has solved their concerns.

Here are the facts:

• There is no research proving that the skin around the eye area needs something different from skin elsewhere on the face.

• I hate telling you this, but there are no cosmetic ingredients that change dark circles under the eye or get rid of sagging, puffy eyes, or crow’s feet (these lines show up on the face and the eye area, which makes all the theories about eye creams even more foolish).

• What you get when you buy an eye cream is a small amount of product (often half the size of a face product) that is twice as expensive.

• Eye creams are often sold as being gentle and fragrance-free, so they’re “safe for the delicate eye area.” So, in essence, you are being told the eye area gets the good ingredients and the face gets the bad ones. The entire face needs to be treated gently and not exposed to irritating ingredients. More to the point, most eye creams DO contain fragrance AND coloring agents!

• You have probably heard that the eye cream needs to be lighter-weight because the skin there is thinner, but most eye creams are anything but lighter; they are usually thick creams, where the face product is almost always lighter in texture. Regardless, thick or thin, when skin is dry it needs emollients and skin-repairing ingredients to prevent moisture loss and restore a smooth, supple feel.

• Most eye creams are packaged in jars and that is a problem because as soon as you open the jar, the beneficial ingredients (assuming there are some in the formula) begin to deteriorate due to light and air exposure. It’s also unsanitary to dip your fingers into a jar every day!

• No one in the cosmetics industry (ingredient manufacturers, salespeople, or cosmetic chemists) has ever explained exactly what ingredients the eye area needs that the face doesn’t when it comes to dry skin, wrinkles, puffy eyes, or sagging skin—and we’ve asked hundreds of people over the years!

• If a “face” product is well formulated for dry skin and fighting wrinkles, you can use it anywhere on the face and beyond.

There are many myths about why you need eye creams, but that is just what they are, myths. Day after day, week after week, year after year we are constantly told “I’ve tried everything to get rid of [insert eye-area concern here],” and yet the problem persists. Of course it persists; these products cannot work as claimed, and you’re being mislead and wasting your money, time and time again. I’m not saying you don’t need a brilliantly formulated moisturizer for around the eye area; it just doesn’t need to be labeled an eye cream with a higher price tag than the accompanying face product.

We suspect many of you won’t believe us and will continue using an eye cream just in case, but before you do, stop and compare the ingredient list for the eye cream you’re considering (or are currently using) with its counterpart facial moisturizer. You will be shocked at how similar they really are, which further stresses our point that eye creams are not necessary. They’re a whim of the cosmetics industry designed to play on consumer’s fears of the one area where signs of aging are the most pronounced.

So what are your thoughts?  Do you use an eye cream...and will you keep using one?