Night-time Eye Serums & Creams: How & When to Apply for Maximum Benefits!
As you've come to learn, here at Luminositie we love anything to do with healthy, all-natural, cruelty-free skincare.
Despite this, eye creams are among our absolute favourite skincare products.
If your skincare troubles or fears involve puffy eyes, dark circles, crows feet or eye wrinkles, a good eye serum will go a long way towards warding them off and is perhaps the only non-negotiable part of a good skincare routine, outside of moisturizing.
But there is a lot of confusion out there regarding when and how to apply an eye cream for the best possible results, as well as the ingredients to look out for to separate the best from the fakes.
Luckily, we're here to solve this for you forever.
Read this page in detail, and by the end, you'll be an eye serum expert and be able to use your newfound knowledge to compare eye creams and find one that works for you without breaking the bank.
So, let's start with the basics!
What Does Eye Cream Do?
Before going into the how and when of applying eye cream, you might well be asking:
"why use eye cream?"
When it comes to the question of 'what is eye cream used for,' the answers and evidence are surprisingly robust.
A good, moisturizing eye cream reduces, erases or prevents the signs of aging around the eyes such as:
- Dark circles
- Crows feet
- Fine lines
- Wrinkles
- Sagging skin
- Dry skin
Since the skin around the eyes is some of the most delicate and fragile skin we have, a good eye cream should be extremely gentle, natural and thick in order to avoid damaging the skin.
According to Vogue AU, eye creams "should never be an afterthought" and are "just as important as moisturiser".
Do Eye Creams Work?
Studies have indeed found that anti-aging products can help to smoothen skin under the eyes and reduce wrinkle depth.
There is no question that using a good eye cream will slow down the signs of aging or even reverse some of them, but the question is, what makes a good eye cream?
Or in other words:
What Eye Cream Should I Use?
While it can be easy to think of eye creams as more expensive moisturizers, they are actually very different and equally important. The reason for this is the delicate skin around the eye.
Regular moisturizers should not be used in this area and can be too harsh, to the point of damaging and drying out the skin, which will only worsen the signs of aging.
Ingredients to look out for that are natural and gentle enough for the skin around the eyes include:
- Rose Oil
- Aloe Vera
- Vitamin E
- Antioxidants such as Niacinamide
- Hyaluronic Acid
Beyond that, the most important thing about a good eye cream is that they're gentle and made of all-natural ingredients, so avoid any that contain parabens or any other nasty synthetic chemicals.
When to Start Using Eye Cream (age wise)
If you're wondering when you should start using eye cream, chances are you should be already.
A lot of people associate eye cream with maturity and wouldn't consider it until they start to see signs of aging, but since eye creams and serums are all about keeping the skin nourished, healthy and protected, the best results come from preventing the signs of aging, so the early you can start, the better.
This is the case even more if you already have some dry skin or wrinkles around the eye area, as every day they go without eye cream they are likely getting worse.
So, once you decide to begin using eye cream, what are the best ways to apply it?
You're in the right place:
When to Use Eye Cream (routine wise)
The general guideline for when to put on eye cream is to always use the lightest product first, giving them a chance to soak in fully before adding another product.
This is because if you do it the other way around, the thinner product on top may be unable to soak through the thicker product on the bottom, and therefore not work properly.
The main strategy is to make sure everything gets a chance to absorb properly so it can begin to work inside your skin.
This means the answer to the question of when to apply eye cream does change slightly depending on the products you're using, but if you use our nourish and repair eye serum, it will almost always go on first because it's one of the thinnest and gentlest eye creams on the market.
If not, you'll have to answer this by yourself by comparing the thickness of your day and night eye cream to any other products you plan to use that day - but it should be pretty easy to figure out!
How Long Does Eye Cream Last?
When it comes to eye creams or serums, the area of your face that you're covering is so small that you should use the tiniest amount possible.
As long as you do this and stick to it, a typical tub or bottle should last between 6 months and a year.
The thing is, products begin to expire at around that time anyway, and we never recommend using a skincare product that's over a year old due to the risks of infection or irritation.
While that may sound like you can afford to use more than necessary, any more than a tiny petit-pois sized blob isn't going to work any better anyway, so be sparing!
Should I Apply Eye Cream Before or After Moisturizer?
We often get asked whether people should use eye cream or moisturizer first, or how to moisturize under eyes.
The honest answer is that eye creams moisturize the skin around your eyes and help to keep that moisture in, so realistically you don't need to moisturize your eyes whatsoever.
How to Use Eye Cream
Follow these steps if you're wondering how to use eye serum in the most effective way possible, or much night cream to apply:
Step 1
Take a pea-sized amount onto your ring finger
As discussed above, there is no need to use any more due to serums being highly concentrated and eye serums especially being thicker than most others.
The ring finger is the best to use as it typically leads to a naturally gentler touch, especially if you're wondering how to apply eye cream for dark circles as they can be sensitive.
Step 2
Put several tiny dots of the serum onto the area below your eye
From the inner corner near your tear ducts, around to the brow bone at the bottom outer corner, gentle pat small dots of your eye cream onto the soft skin.
Do not rub the cream in as this can damage or tear your skin which leads to saggy skin in the long run.
Just continue to gently pat it in, being careful not to stretch the skin at all.
Step 3
Let it dry before applying other skincare products or makeup
Wait at least 2 minutes before applying anything else to your face, and save any products that also go near the eyes until last if possible.
The more time your eye serum has to soak itself in, the more effective it will be.
Do You Put Eye Cream on Eyelids?
The answer to this question depends on the eye cream you're using.
In general, eye cream on eyelids isn't a problem at all and ours is perfectly suitable for this since it's made from all-natural ingredients.
Despite this, the answer to the question "should you put eye cream on eyelids", like with most similar questions, is "check the label".
Some products deliberately market themselves as eye creams for eyelids and specifically tell you to apply directly to the lids.
With these and any products made of all-natural ingredients, there should be no problem at all.
However, eye creams with more synthetic or irritating ingredients such as alcohol or parabens can damage your eyelids so avoid applying these to your lids - or using them at all, if possible.
Eye Cream for Oily Skin
The eye area has very few oil glands so no matter how oily your skin is, it matters very little when it comes to night-time eye serums.
Water-based eye creams help to keep the sebum content of your skin more balanced, so avoid oil-based ones if you are worried (duh).
Otherwise, this isn't really an issue - although you may want to find a good moisturizer to help reduce oil on the rest of your face, eye cream isn't going to have much effect either way.
Eye Cream Before & After
Here is a good example (courtesy of our friends at HR4U) of the type of results you can get in just 30 days when using an all-natural, water-based eye serum like our dark eye all-natural eye serum.
Outside of this all-natural, extremely light and gentle eye serum, we also offer other high quality, all-natural anti-aging eye serums that use the highest quality and best range of ingredients for an incredibly low price.
This is because we prioritise honest, good ingredients with scientific backing, instead of the fads and trending but unproven ingredients preferred by mainstream brands.
Here are some of the gentlest and most skin-friendly anti-aging eye serums on the market today:
Dark Eye All-Natural Eye Serum
Niacinamide B3 Serum & Premium Anti-Aging Cream
Keep your eye to Luminositie for more honest and straightforward guides on what works for skincare and what doesn't!