Beauty Talk: Eye Puffiness

I was prone to under eye circles since I can remember. However, you can fix this problem with the help of a mask, a good eye cream and of course a good concealer.

A month ago I faced a much harder problem – eye puffiness… mostly under eye puffiness… If I had a choice between the circles or puffiness I would go with the former. But I did not have that choice – so now I have to deal with both! Puffiness gives me a tired look and on some days I look as if I have not had a chance to sleep for months! So I had to do something about it. I started to look into the reasons why I could have developed this puffiness problem. I tried to research what I could do about it!?

Possible Reasons for Eye Puffiness

Puffiness can mean either fluid retention or inflammation/irritation.
So eye puffiness can happen due to a variety of reasons.

Among the reasons mentioned are:
1.Allergies
2.Heredity
3.Dermatitis
4.Stress
5.Not enough or too much sleep
6.Too Much Salt
7.Not enough water intake during the day or consuming too much water before bed
8.Alcohol/tobacco
9.Hormonal changes
10.Periorbital cellulitis - inflammation and infection of the eyelid and portions of skin around the eye
11.Mononucleosis – “supra-orbital oedema”
12.Crying
13.Moisturizer – too heavy/oily

And the most unpleasant of all the reasons mentioned is “Normal aging”. You can do your best and try to treat allergies or dermatitis, you can change your lifestyle and try to get more sleep, not get stressed too much and stop smoking/drinking… but you can do almost nothing to fight NORMAL aging. The only solution is a cosmetic surgery, I guess.

But normal ageing aside, I looked closely at the list of reasons. Some that fit my situation are stress, lack of sleep, and definitely too much fluid before going to bed: having a couple cups of tea is my evening ritual of winding down. Possible reasons also include an allergy or a heavy moisturizer. However I have not really changed anything in my diet and the moisturizer has not been recently changed either.

In some articles on eye puffiness, authors often claims that puffy eyes are usually only a temporary cosmetic worry. However, you cannot just ignore this problem and hope one day it will disappear. Skin around the eyes is very thin and puffiness stretches it, so in a couple of months eye puffiness can result in saggy skin and lines…

I decided I first would try to increase the amount of sleep (at least 8, better 9 hours) and try to bring down the amount of fluid I drink late in the evening. Since the swelling is most obvious in the morning, I will also test some masks and tips on how to relieve puffiness. One of the first recommendations to test is sleeping with your head elivated, as due to the laws of physics fluid should flow down and there should be less fluid retention under the eyes. Posts on this are coming soon!

Read what treatments I tested to relieve eye puffiness and what I found to be most effective!