Dark circles

The first thing to do with dark circles is tell the causes apart. The same darkness arrives by three routes.

• Pigmented — melanin in the skin under the eye itself. This is where pigmentation ingredients and procedures reach.
• Vascular — veins showing through thin skin. It looks bluish.
• Structural — a shadow cast by hollowing under the eye. Not colour but shade.

Different things work on each. Apply a brightening ingredient to what is actually a shadow and nothing happens. Conversely, put filler into a pigmented case and the hollow fills while the colour stays.

That more than one is often present in the same person is what makes this concern hard.

It is also among the thinnest evidence bases on this site. Randomised trials looking at the under-eye area alone are scarce, and those that exist are mostly procedures. We have not yet found a trial showing a topical ingredient lightening dark circles against a placebo.