Do you really need a specific eye treatment product?

There is increasing disagreement among skin professionals, such as estheticians and dermatologists and influential skin care aficionados, regarding the overall need for eye area treatments. Some argue that there’s little difference between your general moisturizer or facial treatment and an eye product so why spend extra for eye treatments. Others suggest that skin is ski,n so eye area skin isn’t any different. Both of these arguments are over simplifications and overlook some crucial differences in eye product formulas and the skin in the eye area.

Orbital skin around the eye

While it’s accurate that the skin around the eye area is not necessarily unique from the skin on the rest of your face, there are some significant differences. First, the skin around the eye is thinner. Second, the eye area is prone to different types of problems and inflammation. And third, products applied near the eye must be less potentially irritating, due to the proximity to the eye itself.

The thinner skin around the eye presents some unique issues. As a very expression-oriented area, there are lots of muscles and related movements that can more quickly affect the eye area as we age. Squinting, sun exposure, poor diet, and poor sleep can all express themselves more readily in the thin skin around the eye.

Moreover, the thin skin is more likely to show capillary leakage and bilirubin build-up, or lymph fluid accumulation better know as under-eye dark circles and puffy eyes. Crows feet and eye area wrinkles are also more likely due to the repeated movement and facial expressions. And finally, as we age, skin naturally droops and sags as it loses elasticity, and the eyes can show this natural effect of aging long before the rest of your face.

Brightening the Eye Area

This is why eye products generally include specialized ingredients that target these unique eye area issues such as: caffeine, green tea extract, Chrysin, and N-hydroxysuccinimide. Caffeine and green tea extract can help to temporarily constrict blood vessels to decrease swelling; while the flavone ingredients such as Chrysin and N-hydroxysuccinimide help blood related “chroma” build-up to disperse. These “conditions” are unique to the eye area and don’t normally affect other areas of the face, which makes eye treatments formulated with ingredients “targeting” these issues worthwhile.

Or perhaps, the skin around the orbital area is prone to darkening due to heredity or other environmental causes. Eye products focused on eliminating these issues will often include niacinamide (vitamin B3) and kojic acid which are time-tested solutions for brightening pigment issues causing dark circles. But, you’ll generally find these ingredients in lower amounts to avoid causing eye issues or inflammation.

Anti-Aging the Eye Area

For crows feet, fine lines and wrinkles, most eye products will use similar emollients and humectants as standard skin care. But, again in safer percentages to avoid eye irritation. For quick visible improvements you’ll often see hyaluronic acid, peptides, and even vitamin c to provide various improvements. Hyaluronic acid helps quickly moisturize the area which results in wrinkles and fine lines becoming less noticeable. While peptides target repeated wrinkle formation that occurs over time. And Vitamin C is often added to help “thicken” the skin around the eye area due to its collagen boosting benefits.

More importantly Eye Products are designed for the eye area

Eye area products are formulated specifically to be used around the eye. This means they’ll generally include less irritating ingredients in percentages that are safe for use around the eyes. More importantly, eye area products generally follow stricter guidelines when it comes to purity and cleanliness, since the eye is a sensitive area.

An Eye for the Eyes

At Reviva, while you might see similar ingredients to our other facial products, you’ll also find our eye products include special ingredients intended to treat unique eye area problems. This might not be true for our competitors but we know it’s true for all of Reviva’s eye products.

Reviva has a healthy assortment of eye products to accommodate various eye area issues and to account for varying tastes in eye treatments. We have serums, creams, and gels. We offer eye treatments targeting firming, anti-aging, and under eye dark circles and puffiness. Regardless, each is formulated to help the eye area and to be safely used around the eyes.

Use Eye Products all over

Interestingly, while general facial products shouldn’t be used close to your eyes, eye products can generally be used all over the face. While eye-specific treatments might not offer their extended benefits universally, as serums focused on dark circles or puffiness won’t likely have much effect on the rest of your face, the overall nourishing and moisturizing ingredients in our eye products will certainly benefit your skin. However, since eye treatments are formulated for the thin skinned eye region – you’d likely see better results if you utilize a facial formula that contains higher percentages or ingredients that might be too harsh around the eyes.

The Eyes have it!

We’ll consider ourselves in opposition to the professionals that see no benefit in eye-specific treatments. Perhaps they’ve simply used the wrong ones, have over paid, or have grown jaded. Because, yes, it’s true that most skin care follows general formula patterns. But it’s the subtle tweaks and differences that offer the potent eye area benefits. And while we can’t speak for all eye products on the market, we can confidently state that our eye treatments are unique in their formulations when compared to our facial treatment products. And we stand by our time-tested eye products that have generations of users and followers. It might be anecdotal proof but after 47+ years in business, we think we’re doing something right. So, we’ll agree to disagree when it comes to eye products.