As we all know, fair skin and dark circles together are the recipe for a beauty disaster waiting to happen – even a hint of bright lipstick in the morning makes me look sick. I’ve tried a million concealers to find a solution, because trying to get more sleep than I usually get is a task in itself, but failed.
In an attempt to rectify this issue, I tried the age-old green tea bags trick – the common notion associated with them is that they de-puff your eyes and make you feel fresher. I placed the cool tea bags on my eyelids for ten minutes in the morning before work. When I took them off, my eyes felt a lot fresher, but they didn’t look any better. The puffiness had gone down an insignificant amount and the dark circles were still evident.
I then decided to try the Clinique Pep-Start Eye Cream – it promises to make your eyes look wide awake in three seconds, this claim I was particularly excited to test. First, it took me a while to figure out how to get it open – you’re supposed to pull the ball upwards, I thought it needed to be pierced. When I resorted to Google for help, I found that a lot of other users had the same issue. I used a pea-sized amount on my entire eye area just before leaving for work and it took about an hour for the effects to really show. It felt incredibly lightweight and hydrating, but not sticky. I religiously used it twice every day and I have to say, while it took longer than 3 seconds to deliver results, at the end of two weeks, my dark circles looked visibly lighter and stayed that way. The cream was also a great base for my concealer, almost like using a primer – it let my make-up set just right without messing with its consistency. I would’ve loved a metal applicator ball though; it would’ve been a lot more cooling than the current plastic one.
My final verdict: I’d give Clinique due credit – it might give me a ‘Pep-Start’ but it’ll probably never replace my morning coffee.
