Can You Use Facial Creams Around Your Eyes

Today’s topic was submitted by our friends at the BeautyBean.com which is a wellness and lifestyle blog. Their question is simply, “Can you use regular facial skin care products in the eye area?” And the answer is, many of them you can but some of them you shouldn’t and I'll explain why. The skin of the eye area is very different from most of the skin of the rest of the face. It’s thinner, it’s more sensitive, and it has fewer oil glands and fewer water glands. As a result of that, first of all, it needs more moisturization so while you can use your facial moisturizer there, it may not be rich enough. You may want to use one that has more water or is more emollient and also you may want to use one that has a little bit of oil to give it the richness that that thinner, fragile skin requires. When it comes to exfoliants, you need to use less strong exfoliants. I very strongly believe that everybody every day should use three essential skin care ingredients. And the first one is an exfoliant. The other two are sunscreens and topical antioxidants but being such a strong proponent of using exfoliants, make sure that the exfoliant you use in the eye area is of a lower strength, and also most of them have been pH adjusted which means they’re not as harsh or they’re not as acidic because they’re being used in that sensitive eye skin area. Third, toners. If you’re going to use a toner or an stringent in the eye area, make sure that it doesn’t contain any alcohol. And, when it comes to cleansers, while you can use your regular facial cleanser in this area, people usually are afraid of getting some of the soap in their eye and just having discomfort so most people, for cleansing their eyelid area or for removing makeup, use eye makeup remover which is applied more conveniently on pads so there’s less of an opportunity to actually have it go in your eye. Lastly, you all have very good common sense when it comes to this stuff. If your gut feeling tells you you shouldn’t use it in the eye area then don’t. Otherwise, most of the products can safely be used in the eye area.