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Hollow eyes vs puffy eyes

Aziraphale

Veteran

I have a weird question. Why is it that all eye products are targeted at "reducing puffiness"? Am I the only person who has the opposite problem? My eyes never get puffy, but if I'm tired, they can look hollow, with dark circles. It's deeply unattractive. I look like a extra from the Walking Dead. I'd trade for puffy eye bags any day.

One thing that reliably prevents this is plenty of sleep. Alcohol makes it worse, I've noticed. I've also noticed that even if I'm well-rested, by evening my eyes are more hollow than they were in the morning.

Does anyone have any tips or suggestions? I suspect it's just the way my eye are, but if there's an eye cream that DOESN'T have caffeine or any other puffiness-reducing ingredient, I'd love to know about it.

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18 replies

Latest reply was from elpgal

Mochi

Veteran

Aziraphale, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm thinking it's something like "sunken eyes"? As we age, in my case particularly (due to genetics), we lose fat from that area under the eye, and it looks hollowed-out.

I've heard about restylane (spell?) working, but I'm afraid to try it. I would really love to reverse this, though. I don't drink much; I do get insufficient sleep. But as I said, genetics

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Aziraphale

Veteran

Mochi, yes, that's exactly it -- less fat -- only it's not under the eye for me, but above. It's absolutely genetic. I see other people with the same issue. If you look at young people, you can see that some have lots of padding around the eye, and some have little. Those with lots may end up with eye bags as the skin's elasticity decreases, and those with little may end up with hollow eyes.

My question is: is there an eye cream that's helpful for this? So many creams claim to "reduce eye puffiness", but I want one that increases eye puffiness!

Mochi

Veteran

Hmm. I never even thought about above! My browbone comes straight down to my eye, practically, so that isn't my issue. Below the eye, it's hopelessly sunk. I was just browsing google for Restylane before and afters, and I will say, it's tempting to go that non-surgical but costly route!

I hope someone has an answer for you. Get those eye sockets puffed out!

Mochi

Veteran

Incidentally, like you, I'm adopted. The very first time I met my birth mother, I was 29 so she was about mid-fifties, the same age as my adoptive mom. But she had such sunken eyes, she looked older. I was really unsettled. I hope I don't have that fate.

Chris987

Veteran

I have the same situation, I have deep hollows below my eyes that have been there for many years and just get more prominent as the years go by. It makes me look tired and worn out even if I'm not :-). Exercise, sleep, drinking water make no difference to this specific issue. Yep, it's genetic. It's caused by not having enough fat cells to have the facial skin push away from the orbital bone under the eye, so you get a shadow along that bone. It tends to be more common in pale skinned people I think, that's certainly true for me. As I think you've noted Aziraphale it is the opposite of the "puffiness" or "dark circles" that most eye creams claim to target.

I asked a dermatologist a couple of years ago if she knew of any products that would help. She said no, the only think that will really help is filler injections (like restylane) to put a little more padding into the area. So far am reluctant to head down that path because the treatments have to be redone every 6 months or something like that and as Mochi noted it's pricey.

Regular undereye concealers alone do NOTHING for this. I have however, after a bunch of google searches and some experimentation, found one makeup trick that seems to help a bit.

You use what's called a color corrector, which is like thick undereye concealer but in a color that's NOT a skin tone color. Most people seem to choose either yellow or peach and I think pale green is another option. I bought an inexpensive palette at Ulta with several colors to experiment with. Peach was the right one for me. The application takes a little bit of practice. I think of it as "painting". First you paint on a little stripe of the corrector right on the shadow area, kind of like a thinner version of the stuff American football players put under their eyes. You are trying to make that shadow line fade. (I keep wondering if there is some sort of theatrical makeup that would totally mask the shadow but have not found anything.) On top of that goes regular concealer, again just right on the shadow area, NOT on the rest of the undereye. Then add foundation or in my case tinted moisturizer. This is one case where you do not want to blend things too much or you'll loose the effect, which means that a foundation or tinted moisturizer is a must so you don't look like you just painted lines under your eyes

I'd love to hear if anyone knows of any other methods....

SandyG

Veteran

The skin beneath our eyes is supported by fat pads (image a string of 5 pearls), the tightness of the skin and the architecture of the eye bones. Eyes look hollow when either the fat pads are too small, or are retracted beneath the eye bone. The skin lacks support and shows dark.

There's not much to be done on the exterior, with skincare and cosmetics, besides redirecting the light to your cheekbones. Fillers work really well. I had it done once and cherish my photos from that year! Didn't tell my best friend and she said several times I looked rested and energetic It lasted close to a year and some current fillers are longer. You want a quality cosmetic dermatologist so don't compromise. It's expensive, so obviously a very individual decision. I'm a vain and silly creature and I loved the results.

Chris987

Veteran

SandyG,

it sounds like you had really good results. If you don't mind, could you tell us why you only did it for one year?

Mochi

Veteran

Also PM me if you live close to Boston

Gaylene

Veteran

Nothing magical, but if you are aren't ready for invasive techniques, I've been happy using Clinique's Even Better Eyes. The titanium dioxide and mica seem to brighten and reflect light and reduce the sunken look. Here's Paula's review:
http://www.paulaschoice.com/be.....-Corrector

If I need some extra brightening, I'll add a swipe of L'Oreal's Visible Lift Serum in the hollow. Again, nothing magic, but it does seem to improve the area:
http://www.paulaschoice.com/be.....-Concealer

ETA: I've tried something similar to Chris' solution, but, at 67, I've too many small lines for a thicker concealer. Both of the products I use are quite sheer so they don't settle into the lines. I hate the look of cakey concealer around my eyes and I don't want to go the filler route, so these two products are my best compromise solution for now. If anyone else has something that brightens without caking and settling into fine lines, I'm all ears!

carter

Veteran

Would a clear matte lip plumper help? I've never used one, so I really have no idea if they even work for lips...or if they do, how they do it. There do seem to be several of them on the market these days.

SandyG

Veteran

Don't use lip plumper around your eyes. A friend did with sudden, swollen results that could have been dangerous.

I used the filler only once because that dermatologist moved. Toward the end of that year, a car accident sent me on a long trip to physical therapies and several operations to put things back in working order. I've found a wonderful dermatologist for rosacea now, and at some point I'll ask her to recommend someone and find out what's current with fillers. Appearance has taken a back seat to regaining functions

Mochi, I'm not close to Boston. Vogue and Elle magazines list top derms in annual issues. Maybe start there? I found mine by interviewing several derms in SoCal and northern California.

Glory

Veteran

I have this hollowed look as well. For the longest time I thought it was simply dark circles but not so. And it is much more pronounced on one eye which is awful. I had my makeup done at Sephora about one month ago and they used a color corrector as mentioned above. It was quite well done and helped quite a bit. I may purchase the products. I haven't considered fillers at this point.

Laura (rhubarbgirl)

(website)

Veteran

I'm reading this with interest because although this is not a serious problem for me at the moment, I'm definitely more on the hollow side of the continuum. The only time I get properly puffy eyes is when I've had an allergic reaction to something! I suspect that it would be more dramatic if I were skinnier; when I've lost significant amounts of weight my body looks better but my face looks worse...

Color correcting has been all the rage recently - in fact there's a fascinating video in Sephora's instructional videos section where a woman with South Asian skin uses bright red color corrector to fix her undereye circles. Apparently she started with red lipstick, but now there are specialized products.

My routine right now, if I'm feeling like being detailed, is to use the Sephora lightening concealer for undereyes (a Touche Eclat imitator) around the bottom and the outside corners of my eyes, where I have either pigmentation, or just pale enough skin so that all the blood vessels show through. The shade I use is a pinkier-peach than my actual skin most places, so I think it's balancing out the purple shadows for a color correcting effect somewhat. I've tried the green products before, which are supposed to balance out redness, but they've never looked remotely natural.

Oh yeah, the eye cream that I use is super-basic - Olay eye gel, which is a clear gel. http://www.drugstore.com/olay-.....80?catid=1

I've heard that you don't really need to use a special eye cream if your regular moisturizer works fine around the eyes.

elpgal

Veteran

I have the double 'misfortune' of dark circles and sunked under-eye since I was young. The only thing that has helped is concealer - I use the starts Maracuja line. A lot of South Asian women have this problem.

Aziraphale

Veteran

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Chris987, I think I may have not been clear. My undereye area is not sunken, although it literally never gets puffy. It is dead flat and taut (wish I could say the same for my belly, haha!) The area above the eye can sometimes appear hollow if I haven't had enough sleep, or if I'm dehydrated. First thing in the morning, it's not hollow at all, but by the end of the day, it's sometimes (but not always) a little hollow. It's weird.

I do have visible blue areas under my eyes, which are handily taken care of with concealer. I find less is more -- a little concealer seems to reflect the light and make my eyes brighter, whereas too much will just look cakey and fake.

SandyG, I promise not to use lip plumper around my eyes!

Gaylene, and SandyG, I am not ready for filler! Plus, I doubt they'd even put filler above the eye. It seems dangerous. I value my vision far more than aesthetics! Gaylene, I'll give that Clinique product a try. I've been using Lancome and it's OK, but I'm always game for something new.

Laura, I'm the same -- if I'm too thin, my face looks gaunt. I think we all either have a tendency to gauntness or to jowliness as we age.

Glory, I have one dark circle that is darker than the other one, too! It's not yet an under-eye hollow, but it might be one day. I see lots of little old ladies with sunken eyes.

elpgal, I've never heard of that line. Is it targeted at Asian women?

texstyle

(website)

Veteran

It may or may not be the case with some of you but for me anemia was the primary cause of dark circles under my eyes. Once I started treating the anemia, mine went away. I stopped wearing concealer quite a while back and only notice dark circles when I've been neglecting iron in my diet. Dehydration can also create darker areas around the eyes.

Aziraphale

Veteran

Textstyle, I'm definitely not anemic -- I had a comprehensive blood test about eight months ago for always being tired, but nothing showed up. Turns out the exhaustion was because my mum was dying and I was stretched to the limit and not getting enough sleep. (Sometimes the simplest solution is the right one, eh?).

But yes, I agree that alcohol can give you dark circles, mainly because it's dehydrating and thus makes for less "padding" around the eye area.

elpgal

Veteran

Ha, I have to laugh when I reread my iPhone posts on a computer. I meant Tarte.

http://tartecosmetics.com/tart.....-concealer