Current Eye Care Products

What started out as being a planned Anti-Haul post has turned into an Overhaul post!

Whilst I've been diligently plodding through so many of the products in my skincare stash and trying incredibly hard to use products up before purchasing more, my eye care products have undergone a complete transformation recently. And I've splashed out on a couple of items to ensure I've got the best eye care products for my needs.

It's taken a long time of trial and error to get to this point, but now I'm finally at the stage where I'm satisfied and happy with my eye care routine.

Last month I reviewed the two star products in my eye care routine - the Alexa Sky Botanicals Alpine Cellular Complex Brightening Eye Balm and the Pure Savvy Eye to Eye Serum. 
Let's take a look at the rest of my favoured products.

Here are the eye care products currently being used in my routines:

From L-R: Pure Savvy - Eye to Eye Revitalising Eye Serum; E.L.F - Undereye Primer; Alexa Sky Botanicals - Alpine Cellular Complex Brightening Eye Balm; La Roche-Posay - Redermic R for Eyes.

Now is the time to double up!

I've come to realise that the best thing to keep fine lines, puffiness and sagging away is hydration. And this is why I prefer eye serums over eye creams. I use an eye serum in both my morning and evening skincare routine and double-up with the Alexa Sky Botanicals Balm in the morning and the La Roche-Posay eye cream in the evening.

My current eye serum is the Eye to Eye Serum from Pure Savvy. (*PR Sample)

I cannot enthuse enough about how glad I am to have been sent this gorgeous eye serum to try out as it has been instrumental in whipping my eye care routine into shape.

This is the serum that I start and end the day with, plus sometimes during the day if my eyes are feeling particularly tired, puffy or sore.

Despite it's 'barely there' presence, this serum is such a hard worker!

Absolutely essential first thing in the morning after I've cleansed my face. This wakes up tired eyes in a flash. It's incredibly hydrating, thanks to the inclusion of snow mushroom in the ingredients (check out my recent review to find out more).

It absorbs totally into my skin really quickly so that by the time I've finished the rest of my morning skincare routine, I'm ready to use the Alexa Sky Botanicals Eye Balm to finish up with.

Another recent inclusion to my eye care routine, the Alpine Cellular Complex Brightening Eye Balm, along with the Eye to Eye Serum has been an absolute game changer for me.

I'd never heard of an eye balm before, and if I had, I would have probably assumed that it would be far too heavy for my under eye area. Thankfully, Alexandra, the founder of Alexa Sky Botanicals sent me a sample to try after hearing me whinging on Twitter about how fed up I was with my eye care and that nothing was working for me and that my eyes were always sore and runny at night and my eye cream was making it worse, and so on and so on (yes, I whinged quite hard!). I knew within a couple of days of using the sample that I would definitely be buying a full size. I was completely blown away by how soothing and effective this balm was.
Review here.

I personally have no problems in doubling-up with eye care products that I use, in fact, it feels like an essential step to me these days. It's certainly not because the products need extra back-up, each would quite happily do a stellar job of caring for my eye area by their own merits. But I figure, let's double the magic that each product brings!  All of the products I use absorb really well without leaving any tackiness or residue so the skin under my eyes must really need that extra hydration!

Treble up even!

I had also been using my E.L.F Under eye primer nearly every day under makeup too, although I've not really needed it since I picked up the Alexa Sky Botanicals Eye Balm as I find that this primes my under eye area in the same way.

I picked one of these up in an E.L.F sale for under £2 just to see what it was all about and was actually pleasantly surprised at how well it worked. Where I'd previously had problems with nearly every under eye concealer I owned settling in to the fine lines around my eye contour area, this simple little under eye primer makes them all play nicely. 

Is an eye cream even necessary?

That's definitely the question I've been mulling over recently. I have tried so many eye creams in the past only to find that they usually reach a plateau point after just two weeks of use. I start off liking the results, but then they just seem to stop performing.

From what I 'm constantly reading online, I'm not alone in feeling like I'm forever searching for the perfect eye cream.

If I had to drop one eye care product, it would be the eye cream.

The one?

A couple of months ago I finished La Roche-Posay Redermic R for eyes. It's been the only eye cream that consistently shows results. BUT - after finishing it off, I headed back to my stash to use up some other eye creams before I considered repurchasing.
It's been difficult! I don't know if it's something I just tolerated before or if my eye care needs have changed in the intervening months, but several of the eye creams from my stash just made my eyes water. I need to have a good and valid reason before de-cluttering, and I think this is a good enough reason.
I think this is a time where I can justifiably completely overhaul my current eye care stash and get rid of most of it - and just go back to the eye cream that I know works for me.
But in saying that, out of all of the eye products that I do regularly use, I think that an eye cream has made it's way to the bottom of the essentials list. I do like the La Roche-Posay Redermic R for Eyes because of it's inclusion of Retinol but I do find that I still sometimes suffer from watering eyes in the evening - whether that's some kind of hay fever symptom or just another change due to aging I'm not entirely sure. But it does leave me hesitant when using eye cream.


Back-Ups

I'm really satisfied with my current eye care routine and can't see why I would need to change it in any way, but these are extra products that I have in my stash.

* Dr Konopka's Anti-Puffiness Eye Gel
I haven't opened or tried this yet. It was a bit of an impulse buy when I was buying some other Dr Konopka's products. Good value - I think it was around the £4 mark.
* Alex Steinherr - Every Night Eye Mask
I picked this up because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about the Primark Alex Steinherr range. This is the only product that I liked the sound of. I have tried this but don't really have any firm thoughts on it so far. It just felt like an eye gel - I couldn't feel any extra benefit from using it overnight.
* Revolution - 5% Caffeine Solution + Hyaluronic Acid
I picked this up purely to take a Revolution order up to the cost where I could receive free shipping! I've tried it a couple of times. Compared to The Ordinary Caffeine Solution 5% it's not too bad. Perhaps not as potent as The Ordinary, but seems like a nice enough serum and not too sticky.
* Natura Estonica - Sophora Japonica Eye Gel
Not opened or tried this yet. It was a T.K Maxx impluse buy. It only cost £2.99 though!
* Oolution - Eye Love
When I was going through my eye creams seeing which ones made my eyes water, this is the only one from my old stash that didn't irritate my eyes. So I've kept it as a back up. It's quite old though.
* Sofia Latif - Eye Oil
I received this is in a Skin Organics Clean Beauty Box and have tried it a couple of times. This is one product from my back up that I'm really looking forward to using. I'm thinking this is going to ideal as a night eye treatment.