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Skin concerns

Dark circles

Darkness under the eyes.

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What it is

The area under the eyes looking dark. There are three causes, and they are three different problems.

Why it happens

Pigment is dense; the skin is thin so vessels below show through; or the area is hollow or bulging so it casts a shadow. Often they are mixed.

Where to start

Tip your head back in front of a mirror. If the darkness fades, it is structural (a hollow); if it stays, it is pigment or vessels. Where you go next depends entirely on which. If it is structural, the ingredient and procedure layers of this site do not hold much of an answer — filling the shadow with a filler is about the extent of it, and beyond that it is surgical territory.

There are no numbers and no citations in this box. What has been established, and how far, is below.

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.

Evidence level
Moderate evidenceOther

Caffeine

Caffeine

In a 12-week double-blind, placebo-controlled trial on thigh cellulite, a 2% caffeine cream brought scores from 3.96 to 2.50. But the placebo also fell, from 3.88 to 2.83. And for the place this ingredient is most used — the eye area — we found no human trial with dark circles as an endpoint.

Clinical procedures related to this concern

Procedures are not listed alongside topical ingredients. They are not something you use at home.

Surgery related to this concern

Surgery is not the same as a procedure. Most of it cannot be undone, and this site does not yet grade evidence for this layer — these are not measured with the same ruler as the lists above. Reversibility is shown in place of a grade.