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Best Overall :
Carrot & Stick: The Eye Cream
Second:
Carrot & Stick The Eye Serum
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Caring for the skin around the eyes is a delicate process. Not only does it tend to be the first place to show signs of aging because it’s thinner, but it’s also more sensitive than the rest of the skin. Therefore, extra care needs to be considered when choosing an eye cream for this delicate area. Best eye creams? We’re glad you asked.
The skin around the eyes is approximately ten times thinner than the skin on the face. As we age, skin loses its elasticity and thins due to collagen breakdown, which can be further exacerbated by smoking and environmental aggressors.
Not to worry. Budget eye creams, cult favorites, and even luxury splurges can hydrate and protect the fragile eye area. Dermatologist-recommended eye cream? We’ve got you covered there, too. Also, it’s a misconception that you need a specific eye cream for women and men. It’s what’s inside the packaging that counts.
Don’t have time to sift through all of the best eye creams to find the right one? We’ve done your homework for you. Here at Derm Review, we’ve reviewed hundreds of products with a scientific lens to ensure you’re creating a skincare regimen that’s safe and effective. Ahead, 12 best eye creams to help you fight the signs of age that plague the thin, delicate skin around the orbital area.
Best Eye Creams: The List
BEST OVERALL
BEST: Carrot & Stick: The Eye Cream, $70
Best Bet
FULL LIST
Carrot & Stick The Eye Serum, $70
Formulyst Anti-Aging Eye Cream, $85
Origins GinZing Eye Cream, $34
Murad Essential-C Eye Cream SPF 15 PA++, $70
Shiseido Benefiance WrinkleResist24 Intensive Eye Contour Cream, $64
Drunk Elephant C Tango Multivitamin Eye Cream, $64
StriVectin Peptight 360° Tightening Eye Serum, $69
Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair Eye Supercharged Complex, $64
Skinceuticals Eye Balm, $82
How to Choose the Best Under-Eye Cream for You
Changes to the skin around the eyes can have cosmetic and psychological ramifications — especially since the eyes are the focal point of the face.
However, proper care — including using an eye cream — can provide long-term benefits. Here’s what to look for when shopping for the best eye creams.
Skin Concerns
The top under-eye skin concerns are wrinkles, puffiness, dark circles, and loss of firmness. Start by identifying which bothers you the most — you may even have a combination of these woes. In this case, you may want to use a different eye cream for day and night.
For example, choose a lighter gel formulated with caffeine to combat morning puffiness and a thicker cream with retinol to target wrinkles while you sleep.
Skin Type
The eyes have fewer sebaceous (oil) glands than other areas of the face, which is why it’s vital to apply moisture. However, you need to select the correct weight and texture, just as you would when choosing a moisturizer for your face. So, gels and light creams for normal to oily skin and mid-weight and heavy creams for dry and mature skin types.
Climate
Be it a change in seasons, the area of the country (or world) you’re living in, or simply taking a vacation to a different climate, you may find the need to adjust the formula you’re currently using because it’s too light or too heavy.
Your Age
As with any skincare product, you’ll have to adjust the formula over time to address the current — and new — signs of age. For example:
- 20s: You may not be thinking about aging too much (yet), so look for a formula with ingredients like caffeine, vitamin K, and antioxidants to address puffiness and dark circles (those late nights!) and the first signs of fine lines.
- 30s: In your 30s, initial bone loss can occur, and you produce less collagen, leading to a loss of tone and elasticity. It’s time to introduce anti-aging ingredients such as retinol, hyaluronic acid, vitamin C, and niacinamide.
- 40s: Fine lines and crow’s feet become more prominent, and your skin starts to lose even more elasticity, and consequently, moisture. All of the ingredients mentioned above still apply. Still, you may want to up the strength of retinol and add in a few more anti-aging fighters like coenzyme Q10 (and other peptides), glycerin, ceramides, and vitamin E.
- 50s: Deeper wrinkles and more pronounced bags and dark circles characterize under-eyes in your 50s. While all of the ingredients noted above still apply, retinol is perhaps the best eye cream ingredient you can use as it addresses all three concerns, along with texture and tone. If dryness is a significant concern, plant oils and butters can provide additional moisture.
Best Eye Creams
Best Eye Cream Overall
While it’s impossible to choose just one cream to be deemed as “the best” (even with the categories below), at the Derm Review, the best means a product that’s formulated with a mix of safe synthetics and evidence ingredients and is void of harmful chemicals — like the “toxic twelve.” The best is also suitable for most skin types and doesn’t test on animals.
BEST OVERALL
BEST: Carrot & Stick: The Eye Cream, $70
This revolutionary treatment uses highly effective botanical extracts to reduce signs of stress and fatigue, including eye bags and dark circles. The Persian silk tree (Albizia julibrissin) has an anti-glycation effect that helps delicate skin around the lids feel tighter. St. Paul’s wort (Sigesbeckia Orientalis) boosts the appearance of collagen and elastin, restoring vitality.
FULL LIST
Carrot & Stick The Eye Serum, $70
A blend of advanced peptides reduces the look of discoloration and rich moisturizers combat dryness. Crow’s feet are smoothed, puffiness is reduced and skin is visibly lifted and brightened with every application.
Formulyst Anti-Aging Eye Cream, $85
A breakthrough anti-aging treatment specifically developed to target the delicate skin around your eyes, Formulyst’s Anti-Aging Eye Cream blurs away dark circles, puffiness, and even stubborn crow’s feet.
Formulated with clarifying concentrate and moisture-rich complexes that stimulate, strengthen and hydrate, this lightweight formula delivers five anti-aging actions in one. It’s enriched with hyaluronic acid to help restore your skin’s natural suppleness and elasticity while visibly smoothing away wrinkles. This advanced eye treatment leaves skin feeling smoother and tighter and dramatically reduces the appearance of dark circles, fine lines, and puffiness.
Origins GinZing Eye Cream, $34
This soothing, refreshing formula harnesses the power of caffeine to help depuff swollen eyes. The caffeine comes from Ethiopian coffee, as well as green tea leaf extract. Other vital ingredients include ginseng root extract and magnolia extract to condition skin for a softer look that helps reduce the appearance of eye wrinkles.
Murad Essential-C Eye Cream SPF 15 PA++, $70
While most skincare experts suggest you apply a retinol-based eye cream at night (more on that in a bit), this formula contains an SPF to protect against the skin-damaging effects of harmful UVA/UVB rays. Along with providing protection, retinol reduces the signs of aging, caffeine banishes puffiness, and avocado oil and shorea stenoptera butter deeply hydrate.
Shiseido Benefiance WrinkleResist24 Intensive Eye Contour Cream, $64
This anti-aging eye cream addresses multiple eye wrinkles, including crow’s feet, under-eye wrinkles, corner creases, and lid creases.
Key ingredients include green and brown algae, turmeric extract, aqua peptides, and the brand’s proprietary KOMBU-Bounce Complex to help address the causes of wrinkle formation while serving as a natural wrinkle inner-filler. This potent, newly reformulated, anti-wrinkle eye cream reveals visible results in as little as one week.
Drunk Elephant C Tango Multivitamin Eye Cream, $64
The brand developed this famous cream to brighten hyperpigmented skin around the eyes while moisturizing at the same time. It features a combination of eight peptides, five forms of vitamins C, vitamin E, superoxide dismutase, ubiquinone, and several more antioxidants. These ingredients work together to promote brighter, firmer, stronger-looking skin around the eye area.
StriVectin Peptight 360° Tightening Eye Serum, $69
Thanks to a cooling applicator, this lightweight serum visibly tightens and firms the entire eye area while providing instant depuffing effects. StriVectin’s number one selling eye serum has been clinically proven to improve firmness, elasticity, fine lines, wrinkles, under-eye bags, and puffiness, so it’s genuinely an all-encompassing treatment product.
Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair Eye Supercharged Complex, $64
This cult eye cream is truly all that it’s cracked up to be. It’s formulated with 10X “concentrated repair technology” to restore the adverse effects of a lack of sleep, UV rays, and pollution. It’s been clinically proven to reduce dark circles’ appearance in just three weeks and keeps the eye area hydrated for 24 hours, thanks to a hydration booster. Caffeine reduces puffiness to boot.
Skinceuticals Eye Balm, $82
This anti-wrinkle eye cream is designed specifically for mature skin. It’s formulated for dry aging skin and features a synergistic combination of powerful yet gentle plant-based ingredients to nourish and smooth skin around the eye.
This rich, hydrating crème explicitly targets three prime visible signs of aging — moisture loss, skin laxity, and free radical damage — as well as puffiness, fine lines, and wrinkles.
Eye Cream: The Bottom Line
What is the Best Eye Cream? Overall, we suggest, Carrot & Stick The Eye Cream.
While it’s impossible to choose just one cream to be deemed as “the best,” at the Derm Review, the best means a product that’s formulated with a mix of safe synthetics and evidence ingredients and is void of harmful chemicals.
A revolutionary treatment that uses highly effective botanical extracts to reduce signs of stress and fatigue, including eye bags and dark circles.
When shopping for an eye cream, consider your skin type, under-eye concerns, age, and the climate where you live — or are traveling to. Remember, being more expensive doesn’t necessarily mean better. It’s the quality and strength of ingredients that truly matters.
What’s the best eye cream, in your opinion? Let us know in the comments below!
Best Bet
FAQs
Ideally, yes. Opt for a lighter antioxidant-rich formula during the day (vitamins C and E are two top picks) to protect against harmful free radicals such as sun exposure and pollution. Perhaps even a cooling eye cream with ingredients like caffeine to combat puffiness and dark circles that often plague our eyes first thing in the morning.
Nighttime is when your skin goes into repair mode, so an eye cream with anti-aging ingredients like retinol (best worn at night as it causes sun sensitivity), peptides, and hyaluronic acid, among countless others, is more advantageous.
Considering that the skin around the eye is the thinnest and most delicate on the entire body, the earlier, the better. Many people start using eye cream in their 30s, but subtle signs of age such as wrinkling (or subtle crow’s feet) can appear as early as your 20s
While the best arsenal against age is prevention, you’ll have to adapt your eye cream as you age to ensure it’s formulated with the best ingredients to address the intrinsic (chronological) and extrinsic (lifestyle factors) aging.
Eye cream should be applied twice a day, in the morning and at night. If your eyes aren’t too dry, you may opt for an antioxidant-rich lightweight gel or light during the day to protect against environmental stressors and switch to a thicker eye cream at night —perhaps one that is formulated with retinol to tackle the signs of aging.
-With clean hands, apply eye cream in a gentle tapping motion, preferably using your ring finger as it has the lightest touch.
-Eye creams should be applied below the eye, around the crow’s feet area, and the brow bone area just below your eyebrows.
-Unless directions say otherwise, you may want to avoid applying eye creams with active ingredients (such as retinol) to the upper eyelid, as it could cause irritation.
-Try an eye cream with a metal applicator tip if you’re worried about pulling and tugging on the skin. The metal has an instant cooling effect on the skin. For extra “chill” to help with depuffing tired eyes, try storing your eye cream in the fridge.
Even if the best eye creams are a part of your routine, lifestyle habits also play an essential role in the health of your eyes. For example:
1. Stay Hydrated: Drinking water plays a crucial role in maintaining the skin’s elasticity and making fine lines less prominent.
2. Limit Sun Exposure: Overexposure to ultraviolet rays causes melanocytes, the pigment-producing cells, to mature abnormally. This results in age spots, uneven pigmentation, and fine lines and wrinkles due to a breakdown in collagen and elastin. Also, always wear SPF— some eye creams are even formulated with it. Also, wear sunglasses (ideally, with lenses that protect against the sun’s rays) to avoid squinting.
3. Smoking: Cigarettes contain more than 4,000 chemicals that damage collagen and elastin. The nicotine in cigarettes causes the blood vessels to constrict in the skin’s outer layers, which impairs blood flow. Decreased blood flow means your skin isn’t getting as much oxygen or vital nutrients like vitamin A.
4. Quit Smoking: Nicotine constricts blood vessels under the eyes (and in the face), making it difficult for vital nutrients to be absorbed, leading to collagen breakdown.
5. Get Enough Sleep: Fatigue exacerbates dark circles and puffiness.
6. Limit Alcohol and Caffeine Intake: Both beverages cause dehydration, leading to more prominent fine lines, wrinkles, and dark circles. Alcohol also leads to puffiness —primarily upon waking up the following day.
7. Cleanse Gently: Use cotton and an effective eye makeup remover to avoid pulling and tugging, leading to a breakdown in collagen.
8. Treat Your Allergies: Speak to your doctor about taking an antihistamine. Puffiness and dark circles go hand-in-hand with allergies.
9. Eat a Well-Balanced: What you put into your body shows on the outside of your skin —including the eye area.
Sources:
Evaluation of the Clinical Efficacy and Safety of an Eye Counter Pad,” National Library of Medicine National Center for Biology.
“Is it True That Smoking Causes Wrinkles?,” Mayo Clinic.
“The Top Twelve Toxic Chemicals in Cosmetics,” EWG.
User Original review: May 15, 2020.
How to Choose the Best Eye Cream
If you have never chosen an eye cream before to treat puffiness, dark circles, or to lessen the appearance of blood vessels under the eyes, you will find that the brand and ingredient choices seem endless and you may wonder if choosing the best eye cream is even possible. With so many options available, this can seem like a daunting task; however, the more you understand your skin’s own individual type and how it reacts to different ingredients, choosing the best eye cream will be much easier. The best way to begin is by narrowing down your choices by not only your skin type, but by the issues you’re trying to treat. This is because the best eye cream isn’t necessarily the one that’s the most expensive or has the most fancy-sounding ingredients, but one that will have the most effective impact on the sensitive skin under and around your eyes without clogging pores and creating more problems.