Zap Your Dark Circles Into Oblivion
This column features weekly tips and advice from a revolving cast of industry leaders, on hand to discuss your beauty dilemmas, from blemishes to Botox. To submit a question, e-mail celia_ellenberg@condenast.com.
I feel like I’ve got permanent shadows under my eyes. Makeup helps, but is there a more long-lasting solution to help get rid of them?
“From a skin product perspective, look for products containing caffeine, coffee seed extract, tea extract, and cacao extract. These ingredients serve to shrink the capillaries [in the area] therefore eliminating that blue discoloration. I have two key laser treatments I offer in my practice for under-eye dark circles, too. One targets the blue blood vessels using a pulsed dye laser that shrinks these abnormally dilated microscopic cells back to their normal size. It takes three treatments, a month apart, to see a dramatic improvement, but the effect will last for years. Sometimes dark circles are from pigment, though, and if that’s the case, I would use a pigment-removing Q-Switched laser, matching the appropriate wavelength to skin type over two monthly sessions.”
Dr. Macrene Alexiades is a Harvard-educated dermatologist and scientist with a research center and private practice in New York that focuses on laser and aesthetic dermatology. She is the creator of the cult favorite antiaging skincare line 37 Extreme Actives.
Do these ingredients work on spider veins as well? I have a couple of them on the top of my cheeks, below my eye and they keep bugging me.