Our Best Tips on How to Get Rid of Sunken Eyes
In this article:
- What Are Sunken Eyes
- Why Are My Eyes Sunken?
- Make These Lifestyle Changes for Sunken Eyes
- Our Top Skincare Products for Sunken Eyes
- Conclusion
Have you ever been jumped by the reflection of your own eyes in the mirror after an all-nighter?
Have you noticed the hollowness under your eyes that seemed to have appeared overnight?
Have you ever felt like that you look like a zombie after a long, exhausting week without much sleep because your eyes appear dull, sunken, dark, and full of blood shots?
We do spend a good amount of time analyzing the appearance of our eyes, putting makeup around our eyes, and taking care of our eyes as part of our skincare routine.
However, sunken eyes might just creep up on us slowly without us even noticing. Even a small lifestyle slip-up could lead to the dreadful sunken eyes sometimes.
What Are Sunken Eyes?
Sunken eyes are not necessarily eyes that have “sunken” below the facial plain. Sunken eyes, or hollow eyes, or even “tear trough hollows” and “under-eye hollows”, refer to the skin around the eyes when it appears dark, sunken, and hollow.
Since being “sunken” is not a definitive trait of sunken eyes, sunken eyes may describe the hollowing under the eyes, dark circles, fatigued eyes, and the thin, fragile skin around the eyes. If you have noticed any of these traits around your eyes, you should start treating the issue as sunken eyes.
It might be scary if you just start experiencing sunken eyes, most of the time, the signs come along with aging. The causes for sunken eyes vary from health issues to sun exposure, for some people it even runs in the family which makes it harder to prevent and treat.
Why Are My Eyes Sunken?
You Are Stepping into Your Late 30s
Undoubtedly, aging is the reason why every older adult would come face-to-face with sunken eyes. Eye skin is extremely fragile and thin, easily prone to wrinkle formation, hyperpigmentation, and skin damages.
Skin sags due to the loss of collagen, and eye skin will sag even more because of its fragile nature. If you don’t go the extra length to take care of your eye skin, aging will catch up with you very soon.
You Have Preexisting Medical Conditions
A lot of times sunken eyes aren’t caused by aging or genetics, it is the consequence of your health conditions.
Sinus infection for one is directly responsible for hollow eyes and dark circles. Because sinuses sit close to your eyes, the irritation will greatly affect your eye health as well as the eye skin health.
You Have Too Much UV Radiation
Sunlight exposure or exposure to any form of UV radiation can lead to a breakdown of collagen and elastin in the skin.
If you work long hours under the sun or are a big fan of tanning, you might get to taste hollow eyes as a consequence. Due to the delicate nature of eye skin, the collagen content gets broken down even faster when in contact with UV radiation.
Your eyes will look aged and tired over time.
You Work Late Nights
Late-night shifts aren’t just exhausting mentally and physically, the burnouts associated with late nights can reflect badly on the health of our skin.
Dark circles are often indicators of people who have stayed up all night. Not enough sleep or little rest often causes sunken eyes and discoloration of the delicate skin below the eyes.
Your Lifestyle is Questionable
“Faulty food habits, prolonged fasting, and starvations result in lack of nutrition as in severe long term illness.
This leads to loss of skin fat, firmness, making skin under the eyes thin and wrinkled,” says cosmetic surgeon Dr. Vinod Vij.
If you are a big smoker and a heavy drinker, your skin will be constantly dehydrated, which will only make sunken eyes or dark circles even worse.
You Might Have An Eating Disorder
As harsh as it sounds, sunken eyes might betray you if you are trying to hide your eating disorder.
Besides malnutrition led by an eating disorder, frequent vomiting from bulimic purging can cause sunken eyes too.
The skin around the eyes is extremely thin and fragile, vomiting puts too much strain on the eye skin which can worsen wrinkles, dark circles and even cause petechiae (broken blood vessels) in some cases.
It’s Genetic
Just like some people who are born with clear and pore-less skin, sunken eyes can be hereditary.
If you are currently experiencing sunken eyes at a young age and you are free of medical conditions, you might have inherited it from your parents.
"Some people are more prone to have eye sockets that are further sunken in, and the shadow of your bone structure makes it appear as though your dark circles are worse," says Dr. Tania Elliott, a board-certified dermatologist.
"Some people also just have more pigment (melanin) genetically, which can lead to darker circles under the eye.”
If your sunken eyes are indeed genetic, you might need to double up on the protection front and up your skincare game.
5 Lifestyle Changes for Sunken Eyes
Use Cold Compression to Relax Your Eyes
The chances are high that you spend quite a big chunk of your day staring at a monitor, your phone, or other electronic devices.
While these habits might concern eyesight more than anything, eye strain and exhaustion can intensify the appearance of dark circles due to dilated blood vessels. Cold compression constricts blood vessels which will in turn reduce the appearance of sunken eyes.
Make it a daily routine to cold-compress your eyes at the end of the day, your eyes will feel better and sunken eyes will improve too.
Quit Smoking
Smoking can kill you, we all know that. The horrifying packaging of your cigarettes is a constant reminder whenever you feel like a drag.
The sucking and pouting muscle movements from smoking add smoker’s lines to your face, while the toxins inside the cigarettes poison your skin and destroy its collagen content.
On top of the harmful things smoking can do to your skin, the heat and nicotine will either cause or worsen the appearance of sunken eyes.
Hydrate With Water Not Alcohol or Soda
Hollow eyes appear when the skin is not hydrated enough, but the skin can often bounce back once moisture is added (if you are still young and healthy).
Moisturize with a heavy-duty moisturizer around the eyes is recommended. Drinking as much water as possible for the body will also benefit the skin.
If you consume too many beverages in one sitting (binge drinking for example), your body will be in a state of dehydration. Furthermore, too much alcohol might dilate the pores of the skin, trigger acne, and weaken skin’s barrier, not a great option for sunken eyes.
Take Care of Your Allergies
Seasonal allergies, hay fever, contact dermatitis, and sinus infections can all contribute to sunken eyes.
More often than not, the cause of your sunken eyes is actually medical. When allergies happen, you tend to sneeze, tear up, or have nasal congestion even conjunctivitis.
Consequently, you will rub, pull, and tug the skin around your nose and under the eyes for relief. Seeking professional help when allergy season is upon us can effectively prevent sunken eyes.
"Daily nasal corticosteroid sprays such as Flonase help to control the inflammation in your nasal passages and block allergic chemicals from being released. Oral non-sedating antihistamines can help too," notes Dr. Elliot.
Sleep At Least 8 Hours A Day
Sleep deprivation makes the blood vessels under the eyes to dilate, resulting in dark circles, and zombie-looking eyes.
Even though some people seem to be doing just okay with a few hours of sleep a day, their body is constantly on edge and their general health will slowly deteriorate over time.
Another good tip for improving, preventing sunken eyes is to sleep with your head elevated - a simple act to better blood flow to prevent fluid retention. Sleeping in the wrong position could lead to more wrinkles.
Invest in a memory foam pillow or a special anti-wrinkle pillow, and you will find yourself free from skin folds, puffiness, and dark circles the next morning.
Our Best Products & Tips for Sunken Eyes
Rejuvenating Hydrogel Eye Patches During the Day
If you need an afternoon pick-me-up, we recommend putting on these gold-infused hydrogel eye patches during work breaks.
These hydrogel patches are packed with hydrators and antioxidants. With niacinamide firming the under-eye skin and reducing puffiness, red seaweed extract protecting skin barrier, and hyaluronic acid deeply hydrating and retaining the moisture, a 15-minute application is all you need to relax and rejuvenate the skin around your eyes.
Restoring Hydrogel Eye Patches Before Bed
Chuck in these nighttime eye patches into your skincare routine before bed, you won’t regret it.
Unlike our day patches, these night patches are designed to deeply replenish the eye skin after a long day. Key ingredients include seaweed extract, zinc, collagen, and ceramide, your skin would never feel more nourished after use.
Anti-Wrinkle Patches for Eyes and Smile
Silicone anti-wrinkle patches have changed a lot of people’s view on skin rejuvenation, many of our long-term users even prefer them to injectables.
The fact that silicone is such an effective yet simple ingredient in combating skin aging due to its stable and occlusive character.
Oia’s anti-wrinkle patches create a bubble to retain moisture, allow the skin to rest, heal, and strengthen over night.
You can wear them to bed and they will stay comfortably on while you sleep, you won’t even feel their existence. 90% of users claimed to see drastic improvements after a single use - reduced dark circles, minimized fine lines, and almost non-existent puffiness.
A Few Drops of Vitamin C Never Hurt Nobody
Vitamin C is truly a godsend ingredient for the skin.
Sunken eyes are dark in complexion, hollow in appearance, wrinkly in texture, whereas Vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant proven effective in evening out skin tones, boosting collagen production, and hydrating skin deeply.
Oia’s 10% Vitamin C serum also comes with a side bonus of retinol (vitamin A) - possibly the most popular anti-aging antioxidant ingredient in topical skincare, hyaluronic acid - effective binds moisture to skin for better absorption, and Vitamin E - increasing skin cell regeneration rate.
We recommend using it after cleansing and toning, apply a few drops onto your face and decollete area daily before moisturizer, and you will see an instant radiance.
Final Thoughts
It might be too early to tell yet, but sunken eyes will happen to the best of us.
Perfect skin won’t stand the test of time if we don’t take care of it the right way.
We wear eye makeup every day because our eyes are a big part of our identity and we would like to beautify them as much as we can. If the eyes appear sunken, hollow, or troubled with dark circles, naturally we would seek cosmetic solutions.
While fillers and injectables are typically the most straightforward answer to “hollowness” under the eyes, if the problem isn’t too serious or persistent, the skin usually has the ability to bounce back with proper care. Besides, prevention is always more important than treatment when it comes to skin problems and skin aging.
Eye skin is delicate, it can be affected by a seemingly unimportant bad habit yet a small lifestyle change can also lead to drastic improvements.
Oia’s eye patch range provides a comprehensive, day-to-night skin solution for all eye skin troubles. A perfect combination of natural ingredients and science-backed new technology, each Oia product is designed to be a non-invasive alternative treatment to injectables.
If you are not sure which product is the most suitable for your current skin situation, feel free to reach out, we would love to hear your thoughts on sunken eyes and give you some personalized insights.
Stay radiant,
Oia Skin Team