How to: Get Rid of Dark Circles

Before
I was half asleep, sorry this is so horrific

After!

Quite a few people have been asking me the same question recently, the question being 'how on earth can I make myself look like less of a tired mess and get rid of these pesky dark circles?!?'. Dark circles are something which may affect us sporadically, due to tiredness or stress, or they may be a constant concern due to your genetics; dark circles and deep set eyes run tend to run in the family. Dark circles definitely run in my family, and no matter what eye cream I try, how much sleep I get and how much water I drink, there they are. Because of this, I like to think I’m something of a dab-hand at disguising them with makeup.

I’m going to use 4 products in this post, depending on how bad your dark circles are you might only need to use a couple of them. Here’s a handy little guide to help you figure out what products you need:

Dark shadows: Concealer

Dark semicircles: Highlighter and concealer

Dark circles: Highlighter, colour corrector and concealer

Dark circles and then some: 2 highlighters, colour corrector and concealer

What I will use...

So, as you can clearly see, my dark circles are pretty bad. The first thing I’m going to do is use a highlighter, which is full of light reflecting particles which bounce light off the skin and make it appear glowing.  As I have mentioned before, Touche Eclat is the man for the job in my opinion. I apply it in a ring around my eye, like this, starting at the inner corner. This is the darkest bit so this is where you want most of the product to go.

Touche Eclat

If you want an extra boost, apply a highlighter on your cheekbones too, and blend it up and into your eye area. This will make your whole eye area appear fresher and more luminous. You can use the same one if you like, or whatever highlighter you choose, but I like using High Beam by Benefit. It is a good shade for my skin tone and the light pink colour helps combat dullness. I wait until I have applied both highlighters and blend them together with a brush or my fingers.

Your skin is now glowing but there is still blue discolouration under the eye. Blue veins appear near the surface of the skin under the eye, as the skin is thinner, and these need to be cancelled out with an opposite colour. If you are pale like me then use a light yellow, here I’m using Lemon-Aid by Benefit. If you have a mid-tone skin, such as olive or tan, use a pale apricot colour, and if you are darker, use terracotta orange. I get a little Lemon-Aid on my pinky and I pat it under the eye, into the inner corner, and over my eyelid.

The colour corrector may leave your skin a weird colour (yellow eyes, anyone?) so it’s important to warm it back up to your skin tone with a concealer of your natural colour.  You probably have your own favourite concealer, I like Bourjois Healthy Mix Concealer, as the texture is light but moisturising and it contains apricot for radiance and raspberry to boost circulation. 

This is an overly-lengthy process, and I appreciate that not everyone will want to use every step, but this is my method for complete coverage and it seems to work on everybody I try it on.  Play around and see what works for you, everyone is different!

Done!