When you’re ready to get serious about your anti-aging routine, you want the quickest transformation possible. So the best place to start? Your eyes. Your eyes are your calling card and are usually the first place to show signs of aging. So taking care of this delicate area of your face is an essential part of a successful and effective anti-aging regimen. The three most common complaints patients bring to Dr. Schultz about their eyes are crow’s feet, dark circles, and puffiness. Once you reach your forties, your crow’s feet might start to be a little bit more pronounced and those dark circles and puffiness can no longer be blamed on one bad night of sleep. But these complaints are ones that Dr. Schultz has years of experience in resolving, and now he’s sharing the secret to younger-looking eyes with you.

Signs of Aging Around the Eyes

These three signs of aging around the eyes—bags or puffiness, crow’s feet, and dark circles—can be combated if they’re understood. With the right knowledge, you can determine what issue is wreaking the most havoc on the skin around your eyes. Then, you can start using the right ingredients to transform the look of your eyes. With a little bit of information, beautiful, younger-looking eyes are closer than you think.

Bags or Puffiness

You may have a situation where your dark under eye circles stem from shadows due to a bulge (puffiness) and the trough below it. This trough is caused by a loss of fat, collagen, and bone over the years. Dr. Schultz explains, “So the puffiness is caused by fat protrusion or swelling below the eye, and the contrast between the height of the puff and depth of the trough creates a shadow from overhead light. You want to fill in the low point. This is when we may put Filler in the trough after we reduce the puff and therefore decrease the difference in the height of the contours, leading to decreased shadow.” Another way to combat shadows caused by puffiness is to use skin-tightening procedures. This process heats the skin to shrink the fibers around the fat that’s part of the puffiness. That causes a decrease in the bulge which, of course, causes a decrease in the shadow.

Crow’s Feet

There are plenty of products from sunscreen to antioxidants that can reduce and slow the appearance of skin-aging, but at some point, you’re sure to get a wrinkle or two around your eyes. This can happen as early as your twenties, but certainly becomes more pronounced and prevalent in your forties. Most likely, you’ve looked in the mirror and seen the fine lines in the skin around the corner of your eyes, known as crow's feet. They’re one of the most typical signs of aging in the skin, but fear not: there is a simple way to stop and reverse the look of crow’s feet.

Crow’s feet develop around your eyes because your skin has lost collagen from bending over time. Every smile, frown, or expression with your eyes is another bend in the collagen, and like a paper clip that breaks, too much stress over time from exaggerated movement will cause your skin to lose collagen and, with it, its elasticity. Dr. Schultz says, “The eye area skin is the first part of your face to show signs of aging. This is because both the epidermis and dermis are thinner than in other areas, so signs of aging, like dull, discolored skin and fine lines become apparent sooner.” This is why you can develop these signs of skin-aging as early as your twenties.

Dark Circles

Dark circles can be caused by any combination of seven different issues: two types of browning and discoloration from melanin pigment, three types of enlarged blood vessels (purple, blue and pink), and two types of shadows (from either fine lines or a bulge of fat on the lower lid as we age). The shadows that cause these dark circles usually come from age-related loss of fat below the lower lid, which creates what’s called “tear trough.” The shadow caused by this trough comes from fat bulging out from under the globe of the eye. That fat used to be behind your eye (inside your eye socket, in your skull). The bulging fat and the tear trough, combined with natural daylight, together maximize the shadows and make them stand out even more. All of these issues can develop as early as your mid to late thirties, if not earlier.

How to Make Eyes Look Younger 

Because the skin under your eyes is anywhere from seven to ten times thinner than the rest of your face, your under eye area is more vulnerable to puffiness, dark circles—because blood vessels under the skin are easier to see—, and wrinkles. While you may apply an under eye cream to keep the skin moisturized, the under eye skin has similar problems to the rest of your face: it collects extra dead skin cells that make your skin appear dull and uneven.

1. Choose the right exfoliating ingredient.

To make the skin around your eyes look brighter, better, and younger, you need to first make sure your products contain a chemically buffered and pH-balanced exfoliant like Tetrafoliant®.

Exfoliating the skin below and next to the eye with this kind of exfoliant will make the skin brighter, clearer, more even toned, and smoother. This may surprise you if you think exfoliation is too harsh for your delicate eye area, but this is the magic of specially formulated products with Tetrafoliant®. Exfoliants formulated to be pH balanced and chemically buffered are extremely effective without irritating your skin. This is why they’re so perfect for treating crow’s feet, fine lines, and wrinkles around your sensitive eye area.

Choosing a product like an exfoliating eye cream is the best way to ensure a controlled, smooth application of your exfoliant. When you use a gentle exfoliant coupled with other effective ingredients in an eye cream, like moisturizing emollients and humectants, Dr. Schultz says, “They synergize to improve the appearance of eye area skin by helping dryness and dull skin as well as fine lines. Peptides can also be used in eye creams to further improve the appearance of your skin.” So make sure you have a product that uses each one of those youth-enhancing ingredients.

2. Exfoliate around the eye area morning and night. 

Apply your exfoliating eye cream frequently and consistently—that means in the morning and in the evening. Routine use allows your product to do its job, which is to smooth and tone the skin around your eyes. 

Watch Dr. Schultz explain why exfoliating around the eye area is not only possible, but the key to brighter, younger-looking eyes:

Anti Aging Eye Treatments

Treatment for Dark Circles

You may have tried every concealer and light-reflecting cream in an attempt to conceal your dark under eye circles. But applying a gentle exfoliating eye cream can help solve the real problem, which is uneven tone and texture that causes your under eye area to appear puffy, dark, and wrinkled.

The reason it works? Tetrafoliant®. This exfoliant is Dr. Schultz’s award winning proprietary AHA/BHA blend of potent exfoliating active ingredients that delivers gorgeous, glowing skin without any downtime, redness, or even visible peeling. It’s the newest generation of glycolic acid, which is derived from sugar cane. With its potent exfoliating abilities, Tetrafoliant® can restore a "glow" to the undereye area. Accumulated dead cells cause a rough, uneven texture, and rough skin doesn't glow. To understand this, think of the surface of a pool. When the water is calm and wave-free, you can see a more even, glowing reflection of yourself. If the waters are choppy and uneven, light cannot reflect as easily, and the reflection is distorted.

When applied to the skin, Tetrafoliant® creates a chemical reaction that loosens the skin's "glue" that holds dead skin cells to the skin's outermost layers. Through regular application of this ingredient in a gentle eye cream, your under eye area can be free of lingering dead skin cells that are affecting your skin's ability to reflect light. Smoother skin results in greater reflection which brings a "glow" to the under eye area. This makes your eyes appear brighter and less tired.

Treatment for Puffy Eyes

If the cause of your dark under eye circles is excess blood creating hues of reds and purples, then vascular lasers will be helpful. Dr. Schultz says, “If you have very strong muscles of the lower lid that cause a puffiness just below the lid margin, then Botox in that part of the lower lid will reduce the puffiness, and therefore, also reduce the shadow.”

Treatment for Bags Under Eyes

Further proof that Tetrafoliant® is a hard-working ingredient is its benefits in increasing the production of skin-firming collagen and hyaluronic acids. Because skin thinning is linked with the increased presence of wrinkles, increased skin volume causes the under eye skin to appear younger.

Best Anti-Aging Products for Eyes

Now that you know why your eyes look older than they should and how to treat them, here are the best products for bringing out your brightest, youngest-looking eyes.

Best Anti Aging Cream for Eyes

Two key factors exist in realizing the full benefits of exfoliating eye creams for the under eye area. One, you have to have the right formulation made specifically for the eyes. As we’ve already mentioned, an exfoliating eye cream with both Tetrafoliant® and peptides is the best combination for the most transformative results. The second key factor is frequent and routine application in the morning and evening. Consistent application allows the eye cream to accomplish its job of creating smoother, more glowing under eye skin. "When it comes to applying the technique of exfoliation to the sensitive eye area skin, appropriately formulated products are available and should be used regularly for the best results and beautiful eyes," recommends Dr. Schultz.

Best Anti-Aging Serum for Eyes

Once you’ve dealt with dark circles and puffiness under your eyes, make sure the rest of your skin is even-toned and glowing too. While you’ll want to use only an exfoliating eye cream around your eyes, an anti-aging serum for the rest of your skin is key. An antioxidant serum like BeautyRx’s Triple Vitamin C Serum has been proven to reduce the appearance of hyperpigmentation and dark spots—leaving your skin soft, supple, radiant, and hydrated.

Best Anti-Aging Moisturizer for Eyes

BeautyRx’s Ultra Hydrating Eye Repair Cream is the best anti-aging moisturizer for your eyes. It’s packed with emollients and humectants to provide deep, luxurious hydration while visibly improving the eye area skin's complexion, moisture, and texture. Enhanced with Pentabrite™️ and Tetrafoliant™️, two BeautyRx proprietary compounds, this eye cream brightens while it decreases the appearance of fine lines.

Your At-Home Regimen

For the best treatment of your crow’s feet and dark circles, use an exfoliating eye cream daily after cleansing and toning. To keep the moisture in your skin and help firm your under eye area, also use a specially formulated moisturizer with peptides. And make sure that the rest of your skin is protected and brightened with a vitamin C antioxidant serum.

Although it’s the first area that shows your skin’s age, your eyes should not be the last area you treat. The sooner you start smoothing out your crow’s feet, dark circles, and puffiness with the right ingredients, the sooner you can have the look of your youthful skin back. Using the right ingredients for your skin will always bring the power back into your hands and, in this case, the brightness back to your eyes.