The (Upgraded) Skincare Edit

These are the burning beauty questions that one beauty writer always had, now answered

- Chelsea Tang

ARE MY DARK EYE CIRCLES HERE TO STAY?

That question must have popped up after you realised that the shadowy patches under your eyes are getting darker by the day

I must admit that I never quite thought about dark eye circles much. Surely not when I was 17, when I spent my nights cooped up in a pitch-dark room, jamming away at computer games. Certainly not when I was 21, a fresh university undergraduate staring at multiple screens into the wee hours of the morning, only to wake up to more screen time, and even heavier eyelids (which got unceremoniously tugged and rubbed at). It was only until I hit 25; as I blew out the quarter-life candles that I realised I couldn’t blame smudgy mascaras for the shadowy patches under my eyes anymore — and that concealers suddenly, well, didn’t conceal as well.

What made the realisation all the more stark is the fact that dark eye circles, primarily caused by ageing (or genetic predispositions) will probably never fade away entirely. That’s because anatomically, the skin around the eyes is the thinnest of the face; ergo, the most fragile. The area lacks the essentials needed to keep skin taut: sebaceous glands, collagen, and elastin fibres — which is why the first signs of ageing often appear in the eye area. Last I checked, 25 is when your skin starts to show the real toll exacted from the various polluters it’s exposed to. That’s the reason the antiageing regime starts then, and that includes the oft-forgotten… eye cream.