Transcription
Did you know your eye area ages four times faster than the rest of your face? Fine lines and wrinkles, thinning skin, crepiness, droopy eyelids, under eye dark circles and bags. And none of us like any of that.
In fact, this area is so thin, it's a quarter of the thickness of the skin on the rest of your face. It has no oil glands, absorbs almost anything you put on your skin there faster than anywhere else on your body, which is in fact why so many eye creams, lotions, and potions seem to fail us in this area. It makes everyone look so much older than they really are.
But there's a handful of ingredients that are clinically proven to help us all improve the look of this area. And guess what? Retinol is nowhere on that list. And as we get older, starting in our 30s, 40s, and 50s, or even in our 60s like me, no one wants to waste time and money on things that are not going to work. And in today's video, we're going to talk about these ingredients at length, how they can help you so that you can get the skin around your eyes from looking like this to this in no time.
But before we get into it, if you happen to be new to this channel and to me, and I know a lot of you are, I'm Chris Gibson, skincare expert. I've been helping people with their skin for over 40 years, sharing scientifically backed solutions that will help you without emptying your wallet and doing more harm than good. So, if that's the kind of content you've been looking for here on YouTube from someone that's really been walking this talk a long time, I hope you'll stick around and subscribe.
But, let's dive right in with a little bit of honesty. Most everyone treats the skin around the eye area much like they do the rest of their face. But the skin around your eyes is truly structurally its own thing. It's about half a millimeter thick compared to the average 2 mm everywhere else. It has very few sebaceous glands, produces very little oil, which means a weaker moisture barrier from the start. And think about this, it also sits on top of muscles that contract thousands of times per day. And it's one of the most vascular areas of the face, which is why we often see dark circles underneath the eyes.
That combination means two things. First of all, skin damage happens at a much faster rate and accumulates at a much faster rate in this area. And this area also absorbs active ingredients much, much faster. So, the question isn't really what works. It's about what's been tested and clinically proven to give improvement and results you can see at a specific concentration without wrecking your skin barrier.
And let's start with ingredient number one, which may surprise some of you. It's retinol or retinoic acid. Almost everyone defaults to retinol as their anti-aging god. And that's not surprising because retinoic acid's been around in use on the skin for many, many years, decades in fact, and does produce some really amazing results on many of the areas, especially those that show the signs of photoaging or accumulated damage from too much exposure to sunlight. We hear about all sorts of products now for not just the face, but the neck, the chest, the arms, the hands because of the way retinoic acid works, making it a much milder, albeit slower ingredient that doesn't disrupt your skin's barrier. Very important anywhere on the skin if you have sensitive skin, but especially around the eye area.
For many years, I used tretinoin on my face. Fortunately for me, tretinoin tends to migrate. Anything you put on your face does. If you've ever put sunscreen on your face and then suddenly it's in your eyes, tretinoin does much the same thing. So I would end up with very crusty, dry, peely eyelids. Not the long-term price I wanted to pay for youthful looking skin. So in that case, we would look for an alternative, something that works as well as retinol, but not as harsh as retinol. And retinaldehyde is one of those. It has been clinically proven to deliver those type of results over time. Not the only one out there. We're going to talk about more. But if you're going to choose a retinol product for the skin around the eyes, be sure to check the label and make sure you see the word retinaldehyde on the label and not retinol.
And ingredient number two, a favorite of mine to talk about, it's been in the news a lot lately, and that would be called peptides. Now, peptides are amino acids. So, let's get that out of the way right away. What they are. They are amino acids that your skin cells use already to help the damaged skin cells produce healthier skin cells, cells that have been previously damaged through again accumulated sunlight, DNA damage, oxidative stress from free radicals, and the simple process of cell division slowing down as we get older.
And the great thing about peptides is this is where the eye-specific clinical data is really, really tight and sure. And you guys who follow me know how much I love clinical studies, right? So, in one clinical study, a simple peptide blend reduced wrinkle depth by 18%, fold thickness by 37% and skin rigidity, in other words, elasticity by 21%. And in a separate 28-day study, vitamin C was included in a peptide blend, reducing deep crow's feet type wrinkles by up to 20% in 28 days. These are not theological boost collagen claims. These are measured wrinkle depth changes especially in the deeper crow's feet lines and wrinkles just around and under the eyes.
Now the mechanism for peptides is very straightforward and easy to understand. Certain peptides act as molecule signals that tell your skin to produce more collagen without the irritation pathway we see with retinol. So that makes them an ideal pairing with retinaldehyde, not a competitor of it.
Now, we're going to talk about ingredient number three. One of the fastest acting of the bunch we're talking about today, and that's caffeine. Yes, that stuff that's in your coffee, your iced tea. Good old caffeine. Caffeine is specifically effective for puffiness and dark under eye circles and dark hollows, which indeed is a separate problem from fine lines and wrinkles and needs a separate therapy.
And in one 12-week clinical study, a caffeine-containing eye cream produced a 20% reduction in the appearance of dark circles at the same time helping lymph drainage to improve and increase underneath the eye area, draining away those puffy little bags that happen especially when we wake up in the morning as that fluid has pooled overnight. And in a more recent study, a formulation that also contained vitamin C and peptides, researchers measured a 48% reduction in under eye hyperpigmentation or darkness. Think about that. That's almost a 50% reduction in the visible darkness under the eyes. That's a lot. Did you know even the best concealer only conceals about 60% of dark hyperpigmentation under the eyes?
And caffeine, such a gentle ingredient for your skin, works by constricting the tiny little blood vessels just underneath the skin, which is where a lot of that reddish purple hue and pigmentation comes from, just under the eyes, which is great for those of you who are genetically predisposed to have a lot of vasculature just under the eye. In other words, nothing you've used works well. That may be the reason why. And caffeine also works on the upper eyelid to shrink hooded eyes, to actually tighten and lift the skin just above the upper eyelid and can make a remarkable difference in how your face and skin appears when it comes to the signs of aging. Something I would know about being in front of the cameras a lot. A caffeine gel is certainly always on my go-to list to help me look better, fresher, and more awake.
So, if you're dealing with fine lines, crow's feet, dark circles, puffy under eyes, hooded eyelids, these three ingredients alone or together can make a huge difference to lift and tighten the skin around the eyes safely without irritation. And in the case of retinaldehyde, helping to improve collagen production in this area, giving the skin around your eyes back its youthful elasticity and thickness, making you look literally years younger.
And the other great thing about these ingredients is they're easy to find, usually quite inexpensive, and I will put a list below in the video description of the ones that I use or recommend that you had to check out for yourself if this is something you've been dealing with. And for even more ways to roll back the clock on skin and body aging, be sure to check out this video that I picked out for you next. Thank you as always for watching the video today, supporting my work. I really do appreciate you so very much. That said, stay beautiful, subscribe if you haven't, and I'll see you over on that next one.