The 19 Best Eye Creams to Tackle Dark Circles, Wrinkles, Dry Skin and More
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The skin around your eyes is much thinner and more fragile than everywhere else on your face. This is why you see so many products targeting the area, and the best under eye products for men are highly concentrated serums and creams designed to preserve the firmness and density of this delicate layer. These creams target the common concerns we all experience, including:
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Dark Circles: Caused by the thinning of the skin and the resulting translucence that showcases the blood vessels underneath.
Puffiness: A result of the thinning and loosening of the skin, which causes the fat deposits around the eye sockets to fall down into this under-eye area. (Fluids can also accumulate there, according to the Mayo Clinic, which only makes this puffiness look worse.)
Fine Lines and Wrinkles: Because the eye area is both very expressive and fragile, it is among the first places on the face to show signs of age (in the form of crow’s feet and other wrinkles).
Dullness and Sullenness: Often caused by day to day stressors and a lack of sleep and nourishment—and much more prominent from the 30s onward.
These are just some of the reasons that brands issue high-performing eye creams and serums. The best versions deploy skin-fortifying ingredients including peptides (to strengthen), ceramides (to firm), Vitamin C (to brighten), retinol (to smooth wrinkles), caffeine (to improve circulation), hyaluronic acid (to hydrate) among others. Read on for our roster of the best eye creams, which target the above concerns and more.
Best Overall Eye Cream
Dr. Jart+ Ceramidin Eye Cream
Despite its feathery lightness, this cream is dense with nutrients, namely a 5-ceramide complex that firms and lifts skin. This reinforces the skin’s precious barrier defense, which in turn prevents water loss and thwarts environmental damage (like toxin/pollutant damage to cells). Meanwhile, niacinamide smooths complexion, squalane hydrates, and allantoin soothes. Use it to prevent all the signs of aging, and to neutralize existing wear.
Best Anti-Wrinkle Eye Cream
Guerlain Abeille Royale Anti-Aging Eye Cream
Guerlain’s eye cream contains the brand’s signature Royal Jelly alongside honey and hyaluronic acid, making it a real feast for sore eyes—and a smoothing, firming, plumping defense against fine lines, wrinkles, sagging, and more.
Best De-Puffing Eye Cream
Dermalogica Awaken Peptide Eye Gel
Caffeine stirs circulation, peptides strengthen and fortify the skin, while rosemary leaf extract soothes. The overall result is firmness, thus preventing saggy, baggy under eye baggage.
Best Lifting Eye Cream
Clarins Total Eye Lift
You can actually witness this cream in action, as it firms up your skin for the day (and reduces dark circles and puffiness). A 94% natural formula has all the same benefits of retinol, helping keep wrinkles at bay.
Best Eye Cream for Dark Circles
Ole Henriksen Banana Bright+ Vitamin C Eye Creme
Collagen and Vitamin C give the skin a quick-fix lift, as well as a long-term defense against dark circles and under eye bags. It’s a great foundation for concealer, too, in case you want to even out the skin tone between the eyes and the rest of your face.
Best Brightening Eye Cream
Paula’s Choice C5 Super Boost Vitamin C Eye Cream
While this cream brightens the area with a generous dose of 5% Vitamin C, it also targets skin with hydrating hyaluronic acid and skin-reinforcing peptides.
Best Hydrating Eye Cream
Dr. Dennis Gross Hyaluronic Marine Dew It Right Eye Gel
The hydrating super ingredient, hyaluronic acid, is the centerpiece of this gel formula, which soothes all skin types and helps to firm and awaken the eye area.
Best Retinol Eye Cream
Murad Retinol Youth Renewal Eye Serum
Retinol is one of the few things that can actively reverse pre-existing signs of aging, so this serum does that along with preventing further wear.
Best SPF Eye Cream
Supergoop! Bright Eyed 100% Mineral Eye Cream, $38
We all need SPF, every day—especially around the eyes, since UV rays are one of the biggest accelerates of fine lines and skin deterioration. And even better if it’s a mineral-powered sunblock, which won’t soak into the skin like chemical SPFs. Supergoop’s eye cream checks all the boxes, by giving you all the ingredients you look for in a standard eye cream, plus SPF 40 mineral defense.
Best Nighttime Eye Cream
Kiehl’s Midnight Recovery Eye Cream
A melange of plant extracts plus lavender and primrose oils, this overnight serum nourishes and fortifies the eyes while you sleep (which is to say, its powers are magnified as your body experiences cellular regeneration)—so you wake looking all the more alert and rested.
Best Eye Cream for Sensitive Skin
Cardon Dark Circle Eye Rescue
Cardon’s recipe helps nix dark circles, fine lines, and puffiness thanks to peptides, niacinamide, and hyaluronic acid. However, its use of soothing cactus extract makes it impossible to ignore for sensitive skin types, since cactus ranks so high as an anti-inflammatory. (Eat your heart out, aloe.)
Best Luxury Eye Cream
La Mer the Eye Concentrate Eye Cream
Every La Mer product uses the brand’s signature Miracle Broth, but this eye cream triples those powers for a highly concentrated, high-performance result.
Best Drugstore Eye Cream
CeraVe Eye Repair Cream
All of CeraVe’s products are packed with ceramides, which help skin stay firm and resilient. Along with that, this one packs on hyaluronic acid to help fend off dark circles, puffiness, crow’s feet, and more.
Best Caffeinated Eye Cream
Vichy Mineral 89 Eye Serum
This gel cream jolts skin with a daily caffeine fix, to boost nutrient delivery to the eye area, while also instantly neutralizing any under eye baggage and dark circles. It also has hyaluronic acid to deeply hydrate and plump the area.
Best Beginner’s Eye Cream
The INKEY List Caffeine Eye Cream
This low-cost, high-function eye cream harnesses peptides and caffeine to fortify the skin and boost nutrient delivery to the area—so that eye-area skin stays firmer and thicker for far longer (while also enjoying short-term benefits of disappearing dark circles and eye bags).
Best Moisturizer That Doubles as Eye Cream
Dr. Barbara Sturm Super Anti-Aging Face Cream
Dr. Barbara Sturm has an outstanding eye cream, yes, but some people like to use one product to cover their entire face, including their eye area. For this, you want something densely concentrated and high performing, like Sturm’s own Super Anti-Aging Cream. Apply it at bedtime all over your face for an overnight skin-reviving miracle.
Best Marine-Powered Eye Cream
Biossance Squalane + Marine Algae Firming & Lifting Eye Cream
While this product’s use of squalane and peptides makes it a super hydrator and skin fortifier, we love it best for the inclusion of algae extract, a major defense against aging thanks to its ability to prevent collagen deterioration.
Most Innovative Eye Cream
La Prairie Skin Caviar Luxe Eye Cream
La Prairie’s eye cream gets its ultra hydrating, strengthening, firming, and soothing powers from Swiss caviar. And in case you need to hear that again: Swiss. Caviar. That’s like rubbing gold on your eyes, and let’s not act surprised—the scientific lavishness works brilliantly.
Best Roll-On Eye Cream
Jack Black Eye Balm De-Puffing & Cooling Gel
Store this one in your fridge, and roll it on every morning for an instant lift and de-puffing—kind of like topical coffee that wakes eyes up on contact. (Dark circles get gone, too!)
Best Eye Patches
Peter Thomas Roth 24K Gold Pure Luxury Lift & Firm Hydra-Gel Eye Patches
Another product to store in your fridge and deploy whenever your eyes need an instant lifting, depuffing, and firming. Wear ‘em after a night of poor sleep, great revelry, or before a big date or meeting. They use collagen to smooth, caffeine to minimize puffiness, and yes, they use 24K and colloidal gold to get that lifting and firming effect.
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1. Brickell Men's Restoring Eye Cream
Just like your morning cup o' Joe, Brickell restoring eye cream contains caffeine to wake up your peepers after a little too much revelry. Packed with natural and organic ingredients, the lightweight formula quickly de-puffs the undereye area to make you look more alert. The cream also features a blend known as Matrixyl 3000, which is clinically proven to boost collagen production and reduce wrinkles by 45 percent in just two months. Further help comes from MSM, a nutrient that’s found in superfoods, like kale and spinach, which combats age spots and pigmentation. Use this cream after a sleepless night or red-eye flight to freshen up your face.
Brickell Men's Restoring Eye Cream
2. Dermalogica Biolumin-C Eye Serum
Dermalogica was founded by an acclaimed skin therapist and is known for its top-notch natural skincare products that are formulated without any nasties (a.k.a. parabens). This lightweight eye serum is supercharged with Vitamin C which works to dramatically brighten your undereye skin while reducing the appearance of fine lines. The nutrient-dense formula also includes Arjun tree extract and chia seed oil to improve elasticity, as well as tremella mushroom and micro-algae to lock in moisture. Extra brightness, meanwhile, comes from poria mushroom extract, which boost’s your skin’s natural luminosity. The vegan serum has also been certified cruelty-free by PETA and Leaping Bunny to give you peace of mind that no animals were harmed during the manufacturing process.
Dermalogica Biolumin-C Eye Serum
3. Clinique Anti-Age Eye Cream for Men
Tired skin is usually also thirsty. Dehydration can lead to bags, dark circles and fine lines that ultimately make you look older than you are. Thankfully, Clinique’s ultra-hydrating treatment works to keep your eye area nourished and moisturized for a more youthful complexion. It also has a touch of caffeine to combat puffiness. The formula is fit for any type of skin—from dry to oily—and has no parabens or fragrances. Use this cream to look like you had a full nine hours of sleep, when you may have only gotten four.
Clinique Anti-Age Eye Cream for Men
4. First Aid Beauty Retinol Eye Cream
Retinol eye creams are all the rage right now and First Aid Beauty’s is up there with the best. Perfect for those who want to reduce the effects of Father Time—who doesn’t?—it features a good dose of retinol to minimizes fine lines and stimulate natural collagen for that youthful plumpness. The formula also includes hyaluronic acid to smooth and hydrate the skin yet is free of all the additives. The cream has been tried and tested, too. In a consumer perception study, 91 percent of people said their eye area appeared firmer and brighter with fewer visible wrinkles after just 10 days. Best say goodbye to those crow’s feet now.
First Aid Beauty Retinol Eye Cream
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