Korean Beauty: Eye Care

Not necessarily. The skin around the eye is thinner and has fewer oil glands, but a good moisturiser taken gently up to the orbital bone covers most people.

An eye product earns its place when you want something specific. A texture light enough not to migrate into your eyes, a retinal made for the eye area or a targeted treatment for puffiness.

If you are choosing between an eye cream and a sunscreen you will actually wear, buy the sunscreen. It does more for the eye area than any eye cream will.

Start from the thing you notice in the mirror.

• Fine lines and firmness: Beauty of Joseon Revive Eye Serum: Ginseng + Retinal
• Puffiness and under eye bags: Dr.Melaxin Eyephalt Eyebag Cream
• General hydration and a first eye cream: Medicube PDRN Pink Peptide Eye Cream
• A quick lift before an event: Beauty of Joseon Revive Ginseng Eye Patches

One is plenty. Eye products are small and expensive and stacking them achieves very little.

Format and how long they stay on.

• An eye cream is the everyday step, applied morning or night and left on
• An eye serum is lighter and more concentrated, and goes under a cream if you use both
• Patches are a fifteen to twenty minute treatment, good before an event or after a bad night, but they are a top up rather than a routine

Dr. Althea Retinol Flat Iron Eye Roller is a fourth format, a serum with a cooling metal applicator, which some people find helps with morning puffiness as much as the formula does.

It depends entirely on what is causing them, and for two of the three causes the honest answer is no.

• Pigmentation, a genuine brown discolouration, does fade with brightening ingredients and daily SPF, slowly
• Vascular shadowing, a blue or purple tone from blood vessels showing through thin skin, will not shift with a cream
• Hollowing, a shadow cast by the shape of the socket, is structural. No cream reaches it

Pull the skin gently taut at your cheekbone. If the darkness stays put it is likely pigment. If it lightens, it is shadow or vessels, and that is in-clinic territory or a concealer.

A rice grain per eye is enough. More does not help and tends to migrate.

Tap it along the orbital bone, the ridge you can feel under your eye, not right up against the lash line. Whatever you apply will move inward as the day goes on, so starting close to the eye is how products end up stinging.

Use your ring finger and press rather than rub. The skin there is thin enough that dragging it does no favours.

Yes, carefully, and it is one of the few things with real evidence for fine lines there.

Use a product formulated for the eye area rather than taking your face retinol closer in. Beauty of Joseon Revive Eye Serum: Ginseng + Retinal is made for it. Start two nights a week and build up slowly.

Expect some dryness in the first few weeks. Apply a plain moisturiser over it if that happens, and stop if the skin becomes red or sore rather than just dry.