Eye bags

Eye bags are those saggy pouches underneath your lower eyelid and are often mentioned in our clients top 10 concerns. We always notice issues around the eyes first, like dark circles or crow’s feet, because we’ve evolved to make eye contact (both with others and with ourselves in the mirror). So what can you do about under-eye bags?

Treatments:

Dermal Filler - Tear Trough / Cheek Enhancement

Skin Boosters - Polynucleotide Mesotherapy

FAQ - EYE BAGS

What are eye bags?

When we talk about ‘eye bags’ we mean puffiness and swelling around the eyes. Because the skin around your eyes is so thin and comparatively weak, the swelling is not only particularly visible but it also tends to hang in little pouches underneath the eyes.

What causes eye bags?

Eye bags can generally be attributed to one of three things:

• Ageing - As you get older and start losing the tug of war with gravity, the fat pads in your face descend. Combined with the loss of collagen and elastin in the skin, this results in sagging. We have little fat pads underneath our eyes, too, and these can descend into the pocket of skin that makes up the lower part of the bottom eyelid. As these pouches fill up, they sag down and come to rest on the bottom part of the eye socket (the infraorbital margin), gathering up into little bags.

• Fluid retention - which can just happen on its own, but can be made worse by using heavy creams in the eye area, crying, eating too much salt, sleep deprivation, too much sleep, diet, too much alcohol and smoking.

• Allergies and other diseases - which encourage you to rub your eyes, which irritates the skin and puffs it up into bags.

Does lack of sleep cause bags under the eyes?

As you’re probably aware, a whole host of restorative and regenerative processes take place throughout your body while you sleep. If you don’t get enough sleep, your body doesn’t have time to finish doing everything on its maintenance list, resulting in symptoms with which we’re all too familiar, such as dark circles under the eyes, pallid colour and general sluggishness. One of the things the body does while you sleep is to regulate hydration and water retention levels. However, without a good 7–9 hours of sleep, you’ll end up with unregulated hydration and water retention levels, which can result in fluid pooling around the body, including under the eyes.

How do I cover under-eye bags?

It depends how bad your under-eye bags are, but the only way to cover them is with a lightweight concealer. This will disguise any shadows and discolouration in the eye bags and may make them look a bit less obvious, but it won’t get rid of them.

What is the best natural treatment for under-eye bags?

If your eye bags are the puffy variety that are caused by fluid retention, there are a couple of things you can try. One is doing a light massage in the eye area using the tips of your ring fingers so you don’t put too much pressure on this delicate area to encourage blood circulation and lymphatic drainage.

The other thing that’s well worth trying is applying something cold. Splashing your face with cold water may help, but even more effective is to chill a pair of metal teaspoons in the fridge, then, holding the backs of the bowl of the spoon lightly against your eye bags, roll the spoons gently from the inside to the outside of the bags.

Some people like to use a jade roller on puffy eye bags, to lightly flatten them. I prefer a battery-operated device with a vibrating metal T-bar head which seems to help a bit. I apply a serum then work the device gently across the eye bags for a few minutes, to encourage puffiness to disperse.

Using skincare that supports the skin in the eye area without irritating it is important. Make sure that the product you are using around your eyes does not contain fragrance, as this is the ingredient that most commonly irritates the skin, and any irritation around the eye can quickly lead to puffiness and eye bags

What is the best non-surgical tweakment for under-eye bags?

This really depends on what kind of under-eye bags you have.

Dermal Filler treating the tear trough area can work wonders to reduce the appearance of hollow eyes but if you have a problem with fluid retention in the eye area, this isn’t the right treatment for you, as adding hyaluronic acid gel, which retains water, to the area will only make the problem worse.

Skin Boosters specifically designed to treat the under eye area are delivered by mesotherapy which are small micro-injections to the affected areas.

• PLINEST EYES is a polynucleotide specifically formulated to help regenerate and restore the under eye area. Generally more suitable for client's over the age of 40 years. PLINEST EYES improves the appearance of dark circles, puffiness, laxity, ageing, crepy skin, and under eye wrinkles. Suitable for those who may not be suitable for other under eye treatments, such as tear trough filler. Can also be used as part of a whole under-eye treatment protocol, which includes the addition of tear trough filler, to address multiple eye concerns.

• LUMI EYES is a different polynucleotide treatment with a lower concentration and is suitable for clients under the age of 40 years. LUMI EYES repairs damage to the dermis with tissue regenerating polynuceotides. It treats dark circles under the eyes, moisturises and fights fine wrinkles, as well as smoothing and lifting the skin under the eyes ⁠

  
  

It is really important to have a consultation prior to treatment in order to assess your particular eye bags and discuss what treatment might work best for you.

How can I remove under-eye bags permanently?

The only treatment that really gets rid of under-eye bags permanently is a surgical lower blepharoplasty. This will remove any excess skin in the area, and smooth away eye bags by, if necessary, re-draping the fat pads under the eyes that are causing the bagginess. So it’s the most certain way of dealing with the issue and will give a very clear improvement but obviously it involves surgery, which is invasive and a good deal more expensive than non-surgical treatments, and requires recovery time afterwards.

What gets rid of under-eye bags fast?

Nothing gets rid of eye bags fast unless your eye bags are the result of a bit of temporary puffiness, say, from drinking too much alcohol the night before, in which case trying some of the home remedies I’ve described above may do the trick. There are some cosmetic products that reduce the appearance of eye bags by forming a film across the skin, which shrinks as it dries, and so can hold the skin in for a number of hours. The only one I have tried left my skin so sore when I took the product off that it gave me worse eye bags the next morning than I had started with the previous day, so I would advise caution if you are tempted to give these a go.