I did not grow up thinking about eye cream. For most of my life the under-eye area got whatever was left on my fingers after I finished my face lotion, and I figured that was plenty. Then a close-up photo from my sister Patty's birthday dinner in January showed me what my face actually looks like at 59: dry cheeks, one age spot on my left cheek, and skin under my eyes that looked thinner and crepeier than I had any idea it had gotten.
That photo is the entire reason I started paying attention. I added one product at a time, the week I bought it, and I read the label on each one before it earned a spot on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet. Clinique All About Eyes went up there in the first week of May. It was my first eye cream, ever. Six months later I can tell you exactly what it does, and just as importantly, what it does not do.
One step that goes near your eyes and nowhere else
Clinique All About Eyes is a lightweight cream-gel in a small jar, fragrance free, allergy tested and ophthalmologist tested. It is the only product in my routine that touches the under-eye area.
Amazon Check Today's Price on Amazon →The skin under your eyes is thinner than the rest of your face
This is the argument that finally got me. The under-eye area is thin skin, and it shows dryness and tiredness before your cheeks and forehead do. My Olay was doing a fine job on my cheeks and neck, but I was dragging it up under my eyes as an afterthought and calling that a routine. A product made for that area is not a luxury. It is the difference between treating that skin on purpose and hoping for the best with leftovers.
A pea-size amount covers both eyes, so the small jar goes further than it looks
The directions say to use your ring finger and apply sparingly, and that is not a suggestion to be brushed past. It is the thing that keeps a 0.5 ounce jar from vanishing in a month. I use one pea for both eyes, patting rather than rubbing, and I have never once felt like I skimped on the amount. If you are picturing a dollop the size of a raspberry, you are picturing about four times too much product.
It is 100% fragrance free, which matters more near the eyes than anywhere else
My skin is fair, dry on the cheeks and mildly sensitive, and scented anything near my eyes makes me nervous. Fragrance is the first line I check on a label now, before I read a single promise. This one is fragrance free, and I have had no stinging, no redness and no watering in six months of twice-a-day use. If you have ever put a scented cream close to your lash line and spent the next ten minutes blinking, you understand why that line matters.
The cream-gel texture sinks in fast, so the next step does not pill
It is a lightweight cream-gel, not a heavy cream, and that sounds like a small detail until you have tried to put sunscreen over a rich eye cream and watched it roll into little crumbs. I pat this on, wait maybe a minute while I put my hair up, and then go on with the rest of my morning. Nothing has balled up on me yet. That one minute is the whole learning curve.
It fits into a morning that already has four other steps
My morning is cleanser, TruSkin vitamin C, this eye cream, Olay, then my sunscreen last. Written out like that it sounds like a great deal of fuss. In practice the eye cream adds about eight seconds to the whole thing. That is the entire cost of admission. Any step that asks for more than that at 6:40 in the morning has to earn its place, and this one has.
It is allergy tested and ophthalmologist tested, and your face lotion probably is not
I read labels because I do not like surprises on my face. Allergy tested and ophthalmologist tested are the two phrases I look for on anything that goes near my eyes, and both are printed right on this Clinique jar. My face lotion makes no such claim, and I do not hold that against it. It was never built for this job. I just want the thing near my eyes to have been tested for the thing near my eyes.
Morning puffiness looks a little better, and that was the change I noticed
I am not going to tell you your eyes will look like they did at 40. Mine do not. What I will tell you is that the puffiness I used to carry around until ten in the morning looks better within a few minutes of putting this on. It is a modest thing. It is also the reason I kept going past the first two weeks, when nothing else had shown up yet.
Dryness under the eyes eased within a few weeks, and that softened the crepey look
This was the change I actually cared about. The skin under my eyes had been dry and crepey, and pressed powder was settling into it by mid-afternoon and making it look worse. Within a few weeks of using this morning and night, that skin felt less tight and less papery under my fingertip. The crepey texture is still there. It reads as less pronounced when the skin beneath it is not thirsty.
It gave my face lotion one less job
Before May I was asking one jar to handle my cheeks, my neck and my under-eyes, which is a lot to ask of anything. Now Olay does face and neck, and this does the eyes. Splitting the jobs made both products work better, and it made me notice what each one is actually for. My routine did not get more complicated. It got more specific, and those are two different things.
It is the step I would keep if I had to cut back
I have five products on that top shelf, and I have thought honestly about which one I would drop if I got tired of the whole business. The Clinique eye cream stays. My dark circles did not change and I will say that plainly. But the dryness and the puffiness did, and those are the two things I see in the mirror every single morning before I have had my coffee.
What I'd Skip
If you are buying an eye cream to erase dark circles, skip this one. Mine look about the same as they did in May, and I have stopped expecting a jar to change that. Dark circles under thin skin have more to do with what is underneath than what you put on top, and I would rather tell you that than have you buy something on my say-so and be disappointed. If dark circles are your one concern, this is not the product for it.
I would also skip any routine that asks you to layer three or four eye products, anything scented that goes near your lash line, and any promise about looking like you slept eight hours when you did not. And I would skip the habit I had for years, which was dragging my face lotion up under my eyes and calling it done. That was my system until January, and it is the reason my under-eye skin was dry in the first place.
Dark circles did not change and I will say that plainly. But the dryness and the puffiness did, and those are the two things I see in the mirror every morning.
One more thing worth saying out loud: the jar is small, and if you have a heavy hand you will go through it faster than you expect. A pea-size amount for both eyes is the instruction, not a suggestion. Follow it and the 15 ml jar behaves itself.
Six months in, this is the step I would keep
If the skin under your eyes is dry and puffy and your face lotion is not cutting it, start here. Clinique All About Eyes will not fix your dark circles. It will make that thin skin feel less tight and look less thirsty, morning and night.
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