THEY say the eyes are the window to our soul, but it has always been my belief that what lurks beneath them has a far more interesting story to tell.
Despite being a good sleeper, my 48-year-old eyes have been propped up by huge, dark bags that look like they were stolen from Gollum – the bleary-eyed character from Lord of the Rings movies – since I was a child.
Emma Ponsford tried the new ’Oreal Paris Revitalift Laser Eye Bag Instant Eraser Eye Cream which promises to banish eye bags[/caption]
Emma after using the cream which promises to banish eye bags, puffiness and wrinkles[/caption]
Rachel Reeves’ puffy peepers, which drew cruel comments online after the Chancellor was pictured crying in the Commons, have nothing on mine.
So when I heard about L’Oreal Paris Revitalift Laser Eye Bag Instant Eraser Eye Cream, which promises to be the beauty fix I have spent a lifetime looking for – I was almost clammy with anticipation. Or was that just the perimenopause?
I am ashamed to admit that my search for the best eye bag fixes has cost me an amount I am not brave enough to tot up. But according to beauty brand Olay, nearly 80 per cent of women suffer from eye bags and puffiness at some point in their lives, so I know I’m not alone.
Under-eye creams, concealers and brighteners do not come cheap, so at under £30 L’Oréal’s new wonder product sounded too good to be true.
Despite never suffering from acne or an uneven skin tone as a teenager, my dark eyes meant that even at secondary school I was never able to leave the house fresh-faced and makeup-free.
My toxic twenties did nothing to help – burning the candle at both ends with long working days and big nights out made the problem worse.
I didn’t know it at the time, and sadly I do not have a clock I can turn back, but alcohol consumption on those boozy evenings out will only have worsened the appearance of my under-eye luggage.
Booze, including my tipple of choice, red wine, dehydrates the body, causing the delicate skin around the eyes to become prone to sagging and making under-eye bags appear more prominent and darker.
A heavy drinking session can also lead to fluid retention, contributing to yet more puffiness around the eyes.
By the time I got married, aged 30, I was ready to settle down – unlike my eye bags, which refused to flatten.
In preparation for my wedding day, I handed the problem over to a professional, but the first make-up artist I trialled opted for a traditional peachy palette that included smothering my eyelids in beige eyeshadow.
The ghoulish colour perfectly matched the dark circles under my eyes and when I left the salon and bumped into an old friend, she approached me with concern and asked if I was ill.
Add a few years of juggling two very energetic boys, now aged 15 and 13, and cramming school runs in between running my own press agency, and by the time I was blowing out 40th birthday candles I was facing a new problem: wrinkles.
The thick concealers from MAC and NARS that had previously offered enough coverage to hide the darkness now clung to my under eyes like it had been trowelled on by a builder’s apprentice and resembled pockets of plaster.
The cream says it tightens and smooths under-eye skin for up to eight hours[/caption]
I’m ashamed to admit I even once got sucked into such impressive before and after eye bag photos on a box of eye cream I splurged £200 on a single pot no larger than a thimble.
It made absolutely no difference to my panda pallor, but was way over the £25 I would normally fork out on beauty products.
In 2018 I even came close to investing in tear trough dermal fillers, a reportedly painful surgical procedure which involves having hyaluronic acid injected into the area beneath your lower eyelid and upper cheek.
The gel-like substance reduces the depth of the tear trough making the skin fuller and tighter, reducing the shadows for up to a year and draining the family budget by up to a whacking £800.
But with hypochondria to rival Madagascar’s Melman the giraffe, I realised I would never be brave enough to let someone that close to my eyeballs with a needle.
So when I was asked to try L’Oreal Paris Revitalift Laser Eye Bag Instant Eraser Eye Cream, I dared to hope this was the answer I had been looking for.
The promise that a single cream could lift me from a lifetime of darkness was so exciting, not least because, at under £30, it was one of the most cost-effective options I had heard of.
L’Oréal claim the results would be dramatic, tackling eye bags, puffiness and wrinkles by tightening and smoothing for up to eight hours.
Rachel Reeves’ puffy peepers, which drew cruel comments online after the Chancellor was pictured crying in the Commons, have nothing on mine[/caption]
According to their trials, 94 per cent of testers said their under eyes were smoother after using it. 95 per cent said their eye bags were visibly reduced.
Applying the cream was easy, as all that had to be done was gently dab a pea-sized amount under my eyes with a finger and wait for it to set. I did this makeup-free, but the instructions say it can also be applied over makeup.
A cross between a cream and gel, it was easy to dab in place. The hardest part was remaining expressionless for 15 minutes, as per the instructions, until it was time to look in the mirror.
At this point, I was immediately pleased to see that my under eye area looked slightly fuller and, as a result, it did visibly improve the appearance of shadows.
However, despite claiming to be ‘ultra comfortable’, when the product had fully dried I was left with the feeling I had put on an eye mask and forgotten to peel it off.
This tight, unrelaxing sensation remained for the eight hours the product promises to work for.
I can certainly say there was an improvement to the dark shadows.
But the minute I cracked a smile, the lines were back – appearing even deeper, meaning this product aged my under eyes by at least five years.
There was radio silence from my husband and kids on my ‘transformation’, but my mum did say I ‘looked well’ when she saw me a couple of hours after application.Perhaps on younger skin it would achieve better results.
But staring down the barrel of 50, the gel-to-tape technology laser ‘eraser’ sadly did not quite manage to transform me from Gollum to gorgeous.
- L’Oreal Paris Revitalift Laser Eye Bag Instant Eraser Eye Cream, 15ml, £29.99 at Boots.com and other stores.
