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Our eyes also reflect the state of our health and lifestyle. Varied factors such as poor diet, alcohol overindulgence, illness, lack of sleep, allergies, hay fever, and staring at a computer day in and day out can all take their toll on the entire optical area causing dull, red, bloodshot, eyes. To brighten eyes, avoid eyestrain by reading in a good light and by not sitting too close to a computer screen. In addition, before retiring for the night, remember to remove all traces of eye makeup with a soothing makeup remover or you could wake up with sore, red eyes. Try La Roche-Posay’s Toleriane Eye Makeup Remover or Bioelement’s Makeup Dissolver. Soothe red, tired eyes by applying moistened pads soaked in GreatSkin MSM Eye Drops solution and leave on eyes for 10 minutes. Then, place 3 drops of the MSM Eye Drops in each eye. Under eye puffiness can be triggered by a number of factors including water retention, allergies, colds, constipation, sleep deprivation, or the overuse of eye products and makeup. Eye gels should be used instead of eye creams. Cutting down on alcohol, and salty and spicy foods might help. Before retiring at night apply a chilled eye gel. Try Bioelement’s Oxygen Cocktail and try sleeping with an extra pillow to encourage drainage. However, if this condition seems to be with you permanently, pockets of fat or “slack” muscle could be the culprits. In these instances, lower lid blepharoplasty surgery would be a good solution. As one grows older, the skin around the eyes become thinner making the underlying blood vessels and veins become more apparent and results in darkening of the area. On the other hand, dark circles can simply be a temporary occurrence. Sinusitis, lack of sleep, allergies, sluggish liver, illness and poor elimination can all be culprits. If dark circles show up abruptly and none of the above applies to you, then quickly schedule a general health check up so that you can identify and address any underlying health problems. The following tips may help: Go to bed ½ hour – 1 hour earlier Eat a diet high in fiber to help with constipation If you have sinus problems, try raising the top of your bed by a few inches and inhale eucalyptus while sleeping. A cooling eye gel mask will temporarily shrink blood vessels and will help lighten the eye area. We recommend Hiruval and Bioelement’s Dark Circle Concealer. Vitamin K has also been a great ingredient for treating dark circles under the eyes, try our K Derm Gel or Cream. For more permanent help, seek out the help of a laser surgeon. You might think yourself lucky enough to have escaped puffiness and dark circles, but unless you refrain from smiling for the rest of your life, it is impossible to avoid accumulating “laugh lines” or “crows feet” around your eyes. Under eye lines are also the result of exposure to the sun, squinting, or even the position in which you sleep. The skin around the eye is particularly fragile because it is thinner with fewer glands than the rest of the face, so, consequently it is often the first area of the face to show signs of aging, loss of elasticity, wrinkles, and crepeiness. However, by taking good care of this area and protecting it from the harsh effects of the elements, you can keep these lines at bay. Wear sunglasses everyday to prevent squint induced lines and crow’s feet. Avoid sleep lines by sleeping on your back. Before applying your eye cream with retinol (Try M.D. Forte Rejuvenating Eye Cream with the Power of Retinol), apply a booster of GreatSkin C Serum. Two or three times a week; treat yourself to a nourishing antioxidant eye mask. Crow’s feet and frown lines can be improved with Botox injections. For wrinkles under the eye, you may want to look into periocular laser resurfacing. Now, for enhancing the eyes, start with the light application of a concealer so your eye makeup will stay on longer. To open up your eyes, sweep a soft, pale shade such as the GreatSkin Crème or Glacier, over the brow bone, and a darker shade in the crease area sweeping upward and outward to give the illusion of bigger, brighter, non-sagging eyes. To elongate the eyes, take a GreatSkin Indelible Eyeliner and apply from the center of the pupil to the outer corners of the upper eyelids. To make your lashes appear thicker, dusk them first with powder before applying GreatSkin Mascara or Curling Lash Mascara. Brows frame the face and can open up your eyes. We love Joey New York’s State of the Arch or GreatSkin’s Brow Fix for perfect brows.
We break the face into anatomic units for a reason. The peri-ocular unit represents a common area of aging, due to the dynamic activity around the eyes in facial expression. Similar to the mouth area, there are many expressive muscles, which, over time, crease the skin resulting in all sorts of wrinkles. Sometimes a person's face looks great everywhere except around the eyes. Chronic sun damage, squinting in the sun, happy faces and laughter all cause "crows feet." Age alone and certain anatomic/genetic predisposition to droopy lids and bags under the eyes result in the "sleepy," "crêpe," or "puffy" look to the eyes. Chronic nasal congestion (allergic rhinitis) may lead to dark circles and puffy lower lids due to chronic venous stasis (inadequate venous draining from the lower lids.) So, over all, the aging peri-ocular unit (the window to one's soul) may have a deep central forehead (glabella) crease from constant concentration or worry, deep crows feet from squinting, redundant crêpe upper lids with a "hood over the eye" appearance, and puffy, bags or dark circles under the eyes. Will even the most sophisticated of skin care products result in resolution of these problems? The answer is: they can be excellent adjuncts to the surgical correction of these problems, but will never solve the issue totally by themselves. Of course, there are varying degrees of age, solar, smoke, and dynamic wrinkling which have to start sometime and can be positively effected by various topical applications. Lets address all the office-based programs that a physician can offer to alleviate the aging peri-ocular area. First, the issue of dynamic wrinkling is now easy to care for through the advent of Botox®. This simple 15-minute office procedure can subtract years from a person's appearance. The deep central forehead furrow called the "glabellar frown line," can virtually be eliminated. The heavy horizontal forehead lines can be eliminated. Botox® injection is an art. One must pay attention to many details of the face to get it right, and not have the patient looking like an expressionless Neanderthal. The amount injected and the locations are critical. So choose a doctor with experience in Botox® injection. The lateral crows feet are very easy to "knock out," but also must be done with care in order to not paralyze a motor branch of the trigeminal nerve and get a "Bell's palsy…hemi-facial droop" like result. So overall, it looks easy on TV, but demands skill and thousands of cases to get it right the first time. Next, and I believe all these techniques should be used in combination, for the crêpe, redundant upper lid skin; upper lid blepharoplasty performed using a laser is the only way to go. The knife is not haemostatic and leads to bleeding and bruising. Arnica in medical doses should be administered prior to and after surgery to obviate any hemorrhage. Laser cutting is totally haemostatic and leads to absolutely clean, bloodless surgical fields. The result is perfect when performed by a knowledgeable laser surgeon. Blepharoplasty is also artistic. Asian eyes demand a separate approach. Knowing how much redundant skin, muscle and fat to resect is critical for a perfect result. The lower lid is completely different than the upper. The incision for removal of fat pads (puffy lower lids) is placed inside the lower lid so as not to show externally. The lateral, middle and medial fat pads must all be identified and removed. Fat Conservation is critical. Removal of too much results in a sunken appearance. Again, use of the laser for this step is critical. The lower lid fat pads are hidden behind the orbital septum, a thin layer of tissue, which usually hold the fat pads in, under the eyeball. One must incise through the septum in order to get at the herniated (displaced) fat pads. This is a VERY vascular area and only with a laser beam and VAPOROZATION of the fat pads rather that clamping and cutting, can one achieve complete hemostasis (absence of bleeding) and result in lack of lower lid bruising. Laser usage results in really elegant lower lid blepharoplasty, but again only in the hands of a skilled laser surgeon. I like to resurface the entire peri-ocular unit with the Coherent Ultrapulse CO2 Laser when I have completed my upper and lower lid blepharoplasties. Why? The entire unit will "tighten up" nicely with this approach, reducing both static and dynamic wrinkling. When Botox® is combined with Blepharoplasty and resurfacing the results are optimal. This entire surgical procedure takes about 1.5 hours. It is performed under conscious sedation. Recovery time is 5-7 days before one should go back into the "public eye." For those desiring and non-surgical approach to rejuvenation of the peri-ocular unit, the use of Botox®, microdermabrasion and the Aramis® 1540 non-ablative laser can work miracles, but over about 5 months, rather than 5 days. This procedure is accomplished in a series of five visits, one month apart. It represents the essence of the components of the "Scalpel-less ™ Facelift," a GreatSkin® trademarked procedure.
Are you planning on having facial surgery? We have put together two excellent kits for our Pre and Postop clients. Read about both of these programs -- plus the protocols that Dr. Van Wormer uses to prevent scarring, bleeding and swelling when he does laser resurfacing.
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