This Is the Makeup Secret to Banishing Under Eye Circles, According to a Plastic Surgeon

Over 114 million American people bought concealer last year, according to Statista.com, mostly to cover facial imperfections including those dark circles under tired-looking eyes. (Maybe they just didn’t know these doctor-approved sleep tips for a good night’s rest.) Even plastic surgeons have noticed a major uptick in the number of patients requesting both surgical and non-surgical long term treatments for tired eyes.

John Paul Tutela, MD is a celebrity plastic surgeon with offices in New York and New Jersey who has noticed the increase in demand for under eye fillers (the same lip plumping products celebrities use to make their lips bigger and poutier), saying he has at least five new patients a week requesting the off-label procedure. Under eye fillers, while great, don’t come cheap or easy though—patients need to be open to having needles inject their upper cheek areas around once a year, and the procedure starts at $750 in Dr. Tutela’s office. It’s this reason that Dr. Tutela advises his patients to use what he calls a “secret makeup hack” to disguise the look of sunken, aging, and tired eyes either between injections or instead of them.

“A lot of what fillers accomplish is changing the contour of you face so shadows don’t fall in areas that make you look aged, like the tear trough which is right under your eye,” he explains. “By concealing dark circles it accomplishes a lot of the same look that is achieved with fillers.” The trick, he says, is using the concept of contouring beneath your eyes. This is definitely going to change the Instagram landscape, and you can add it to your list of concealer tricks every woman needs to know.

“As we age and we lose volume in our face, our lower eyelids also loosens and fat from behind our eye starts to bulge out. The combination of this extra bulk (a mountain) immediately adjacent to the loss of volume in our tear trough just beneath this (a valley) creates a contrast that becomes very recognizable as an ‘always tired’ look,” he says.

How to Contour Under Your Eyes

He suggests patients swap their single shade of concealer for two separate shades, one that’s slightly lighter than the rest of the face, and one that’s the same color as the cheeks. He suggests using the darker shade closest to the under eye on the “bulge” area to effectively shrink the visible surface area of the bulge, while using the lighter color to conceal the lower area of the under eye.

“It’s basically creating an optical illusion. The darker shade conceals the fatty bulge directly beneath the lower lash line that comes with aging and exhaustion, while the lighter shade draws attention downward and reflects more light. It’s the same concept as using a filler, but more temporary.”

Fascinating, doc! The tired women of the world thank you with a slow clap.

If make up isn’t your thing, try these other remedies to treat the dark circles under your eyes.