Essential Oils
Best Essential Oils for Under Eye Circles
Jun
Eye creams are some of the most popular beauty products in the world. Every supermarket and pharmacy has shelves full of them, so it's safe to assume that under eye circles are a very common problem.
Under eye circles make you appear older than you really are, and tired. Getting rid of them is desirable, but difficult. Those creams can get very expensive, and it isn't clear that they get the job done anyway.
There are other ways to treat under eye circles, natural approaches that are cheaper and more effective than expensive creams. Essential oils are a great way to address this problem, especially once you know what under eye circles are and how to treat them. We'll show you the best essential oils for under eye circles.
Causes of Under Eye Circles
Fatigue is the most common cause of under eye circles. This is because fatigue can cause your skin to become paler than usual, which in turn allows the blood vessels and darker tissues underneath to become more visible. In addition, lack of sleep can cause fluid to build up under the eyes, leading to puffiness or "bags." That puffiness can accentuate the dark circles by creating a shadow.
Under eye circles are also a natural result of aging. You skin gets thinner as you get older because you lose the fat and collagen in your skin, making it less elastic and thinner. So even if you're getting plenty of sleep you may still be able to glimpse the darker tissue underneath the skin.
Spending too much time staring at the TV or a computer screen can cause significant strain on the eyes, which can cause under eye circles. As your eyes strain, the blood vessels around your eyes grow enlarged, making them more visible even if you have been getting enough sleep.
Allergic reactions can cause your blood vessels to dilate, making them more visible and causing under eye circles. Allergies also cause the urge to run and scratch under the eye, and which contributes to swelling and broken blood vessels, all of which contribute to under eye circles.
Dehydration is nearly as common a cause for under eye circles as fatigue. Dehydration causes dull skin and sunken eyes, which creates dark circles under the eyes.
While none of these conditions seems like it would be treatable with essential oils, that's incorrect. There are always ways to use essential oils to treat a problem, and the following list contains the best essential oils for under eye circles.
Best Essential Oils for Under Eye Circles
Lavender Oil
Lavender is an incredibly versatile oil, and is useful for treating nearly any condition. Lavender is also backed up by a surprising amount scientific research that has confirmed the vast majority of it's reported benefits. Lavender is antimicrobial, pain-relieving, and soothing in many ways.
It's also anti-inflammatory, like many essential oils. Lavender can be used in two different ways to treat under eye circles. You can apply it topically, diluted in coconut or olive oil, directly to the circles under your eyes. It can reduce the inflammation around your eyes and remove the circles.
Using lavender oil in a diffuser or sprinkling it over your bed sheets and pillows can also help with under eye circles. Lavender is very soothing, and can dramatically improve your sleep. Regular use of lavender oil for aromatherapy can be one of the best treatments for fatigue, and therefore a very effective treatment for under eye circles.
It's always important to buy the best oil you can in order to maximize the benefits. This lavender oil is made from the finest Bulgarian lavender. The oil is steam-distilled, which is a very gentle method of extraction that preserves the delicate aromatics and creates a very pure, clean essential oil.
Eucalyptus Oil
Eucalyptus is a very popular oil for many uses. The scent is refreshing, clean, and stimulating, which at first glance may make it seem like a bad choice for under eye circles- if fatigue is the problem, you don't want to be stimulated, right?
Some people do find the scent of eucalyptus soothing, but that's not the reason it's included in this list.
Eucalyptus improves blood circulation, which might help to reduce under eye circles by increasing the flow of blood throughout the body and reducing the size of the blood vessels underneath the eye.
In addition to improving circulation, Eucalyptus oil can also improve blood pressure, and is an effective pain reliever. This is useful in general, but it may also go a long way towards helping with under eye circles.
That's because the reason Eucalyptus is so good at relieving pain and reducing blood pressure is that it's a powerful anti-inflammatory oil. That anti-inflammatory quality can reduce the size of the blood vessels under the eye and reduce the overall puffiness around the eyes.
Just like with lavender, you can apply the eucalyptus oil directly to the under eye circles if you dilute with coconut oil. This is an excellent way to experience the anti-inflammatory benefits.
You can also use it as aromatherapy in a diffuser and you will get the same benefits. Remember, though, that while lavender is a relaxant, eucalyptus is a stimulant. You'll want to use lavender in the evening, and limit your eucalyptus use to the morning.
In fact, it's probably a good idea to use both oils, ending each day with lavender and beginning the next one with eucalyptus.
In choosing the best eucalyptus oils, always look an oil that's been steam-distilled. These oils will be the most pure, and the most potent. This oil is steam-distilled from the best Australian eucalyptus, and it's extracted from both the leaves and the wood for maximum health benefits.
Cedarwood Oil
Cedarwood oil is probably more popular for its scent than it's health benefits- but that's mostly due to a combination of ignorance of those benefits and how good the oil smells. You'll see cedarwood oil used extensively, especially in products marketed for men.
The scent is a distinctly masculine, woodsy smell that works well in products like cologne, artisan soaps, beard oils, mustache wax, shampoos and conditioners. It's so popular that you're probably already familiar with the scent.
Cedarwood oil is very effective at reducing inflammation, and so it makes a very good topical oil for treating under eye circles. Cedarwood oil is also a strong sedative, so using it in a diffuser at night is a very good way to combat fatigue by improving your sleep.
Improving your sleep and lessening your fatigue is a great way to use essential oils to treat under eye circles
Cedarwood has a very strong, almost musky scent. It complements many oils very well, but lavender probably isn't one of them.
While you may be tempted to try and use those two oils together to maximize the sleep benefits, the cedarwood aroma will probably overpower the lavender completely.
You might be happier using them separately, and there's no reason why you couldn't use lavender one night and cedarwood the next.
Cedarwood can come from many different places and the extraction methods used for it are often very harsh. Many people assume that extracting the oil from wood requires something stronger than steam distillation, but this isn't true. This cedarwood oil is steam distilled from cedar trees grown in Morocco.
Lemon Oil
Lemon oil is popular to use in homemade cleaning products; it's bright, refreshing scent and antimicrobial properties make it a natural choice to use in cleaning your home.
Lemon oil shouldn't be limited to cleaning products, though, and it's a much more versatile oil than it gets credit for.
Lemon oil is a powerful stress reliever, which can help with fatigue. Stress is one of the leading causes of sleep loss, and anything you can do to relieve stress will improve your sleep, lessening your fatigue and reducing or eliminating your under eye circles.
In addition to relieving stress, lemon oil is also an effective treatment for insomnia. If you're suffering from insomnia, using lemon oil in a diffuser in the evening or at night as you go to bed may make a big difference in your ability to sleep well at night.
Rather than steam distillation, the mark of a quality lemon oil is a cold-pressed oil. Cold pressing is just what it sounds like- the lemon peel, which contains all the oil, is squeezed or pressed to force the oil out of the peel, and no heat or solvents are applied during the process. This leads to a very pure, very potent lemon oil.
This lemon oil is cold pressed from the very best Italian lemons. This gives it a very bright, fresh aroma that smells just like a fresh lemon.
Recipes for Essential Oils for Under Eye Circles
There's no reason to limit yourself to just one oil, and blending multiple oils isn't just a great idea because of the way it smells. By blending multiple oils together you can maximize the health benefits you get from your oils.
If you're using essential oils for under eye circles, you want keep in mind which oils are stimulating and which oils are soothing.
Since under eye circles are so commonly caused by fatigue, you want to limit your use of stimulating oils to the morning hours when their anti-inflammatory properties can reduce the puffiness around your eyes, and their stimulating properties won't keep you up at night. Meanwhile, you want to make use of soothing oils at night to improve your sleep.
Here are two recipes for essential oils for under eye circles- one is soothing, and meant to be used at night, and the other is stimulating and is ideal for the morning.
Soothing lavender under eye blend
30 drops lavender oil
15 drops lemon oil
5 drops rosemary oil
5 drops bergamot oil
The lavender and lemon oils are the heavy hitters in this powerfully soothing blend. Rosemary and bergamot round out the pleasing scent while providing their own soothing benefits, as well. This is an excellent oil to use in a diffuser for aromatherapy in the evening and especially at bedtime.
If you want to apply this oil topically, first blend the essential oils together and then add a few drops of the blend to a tablespoon or two of MCT oil before applying it directly to the skin under the eyes.
Invigorating eucalyptus under eye blend
30 drops eucalyptus oil
20 drops tea tree oil
10 drops peppermint oil
10 drops ginger oil
This combination of oils is stimulating, but in a gentle way. It will provide an energy boost but not in the way that caffeine can't. It's a gentle release of energy that won't cause jitters or a crash later on.
This oil is ideal for the morning, just add some to the diffuser and breathe deep. You can also use this blend as a topical oil by blending a few drops of it with a couple of tablespoons of MCT oil. If you're going to apply the oil topically, you may want to cut back on the peppermint oil a bit, as some people find the menthol overpowering when applied so close to the eyes.
Conclusion
There's really nothing that essential oils can't do, and that includes treating under eye circles. Almost everyone is going to experience under eye circles at some point in their lives, but you don't need to turn to expensive eye creams to treat them.
Some of those creams do little more than add some color to your skin to hide under eye circles, but the circles are still there. What's worse, under eye circles caused by fatigue aren't just an aesthetic problem, they're indicative of a lack of sleep that could lead to much worse problems down the line.
Using essential oils for under eye circles is more than just a way to give your physical appearance a boost, it's a way to treat the underlying problem that causes under eye circles so that you actually remove them instead of just covering them up.
Any of these essential oils can help, but the best approach is actually to use more than one of them, and to use stimulating, anti-inflammatory oils in the morning and soothing, sleep inducing oils in the evening and at night.
Are there any essential oils you really love which were not mentioned in our best essential oils for under eye circles? Share them in the comments below.
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