What causes puffy eyes and bags?

Lots of things, from genetics (sorry about that), to lack of sleep, stress, crying, dehydration and too much salt in your diet.

So before we get into things any more deeply – make sure you get enough sleep, drink enough water and watch your salt intake. Also, ‘puffiness and bags’ are essentially the same problem with different names, so you’ve only got one problem to look after. Surely that’s a bit of a relief?

Puffy in the morning

Many of us may notice that we have bags under our eyes – more often than not – after we just wake up. Why is this? Well (ring the science bell please, ding ding), when we’re asleep we don’t blink. Blinking helps remove excess fluid from accumulating in the area – and it’s more obvious here, because the skin around the eye is so much thinner.

Calm down dear, this is a natural process. The fluid is called ‘edema’ and most of it goes when you’ve been awake and blinking for a while.

But eyes can become puffier as we get older, when fluids from the eye, leek into this area. This is a more complex scientific thing. So just trust us on this one and don’t worry too much about it.

What can I do to stop puffy eyes?

Apart from the mantra of more sleep, more water, eye masks are a really effective and generally relaxing and de-stressing option. Also, making sure you’re putting your eye creams on in the right way is really important…

How to apply eye creams

If you’re not careful, the way you apply your precious eye creams can cause more puffiness!

So:

• Use the creams sparingly, and very gently, pat a small amount of cream to the desired area.
• Make sure your hands are clean, and that you don’t have any other products, like makeup or hair gel, on the tips of your precious fingers.
• Don’t rub the cream into your eyes, as this can cause irritation, redness and encourage more edema to the area. Which is definitely not what you want.

Our suggested product

 

A post shared by Next Gay Thing (@nextgaything) on Jul 11, 2018 at 4:31pm PDT

Our favourite product for puffiness and bags are the gorgeous Nano Gold Repair Collagen Eye Masks, from Knesko. These eye masks are collagen-based – so like a second skin – they lock in moisture, healing your skin with tiny particles of colloidal gold. Look out for one of these masks in our July boxes…

Until your box arrives, here are a few natural remedies to try…

Eat more bananas. They’re rich in potassium which helps with fluid retention.

A cold compress with cold teaspoons or cold black tea bags, is something that can really help wake up your eye area, leaving you feeling refreshed and ‘puff-free.’

You could also use slices of cooled, raw potato, green tea bags or cucumber – all of these lovely natural options have different anti-inflammatory properties, so try them all over time, and see which one makes you feel best.