Dark Circles Under Your Eyes?

We all either know someone with them or have to deal with it ourselves.

There are many causes...lack of sleep, allergies, increased sun exposure, an inherited gene....

For those with sleeping probelms, do you think the simple fact that you see them in the mornings make you even more tired and sleepy?....thus making it worse and worse

What are some of your homeopathic methods of dealing with them?

Feel free to openly discuss what you think causes them and possible long-term/short-term cures.

Well, I'm basically an insomniac so I get dark circles all the time. But I'm really pale so even if I get a reasonable amount of sleep, they're still really noticable. I don't really care though. I heard that rose petal water helps a little bit or even one of those sleep masks. I have a lavendar scented pillow that helps me get a little bit better sleep it helps make them a little less noticable.

I often get dark circles under my eyes no matter how much sleep I get. To get rid of them a simple vacation doesn't work. I need months (I only recently graduated from school, so summers worked best) to be rid of them. I've tried a bit of make-up, but then I just have orange circles instead of blue ones.

Sometimes I think they are more of a stress issue with me, or a gauge of my mental health/happiness, but I'm really not sure. What are some other possible causes/cures?

I'm very pale normally and get dark circles from allergies. I've found that it helps to get some wet tea bags and place them over the eyes for about 20 minutes. Just lay down and relax. There is something about the tannic acid in tea bags that helps.
joey

Dark circles, (most of the time) are caused by lack of sleep, or sleeping during the daytime. If you went to bed around 10pm and woke up around 9am for awhile you wouldnt have dark circles under your eyes.
I have dark circles all the time. I tend to goto bed around 3-4am and wake up in the afternoon.
Even if i get 11-12 sometimes 14 hours of sleep i still get the black eyes.
We went on vacation in july and i was forced to wake up around 7-8am everymorning, so by night time i was pretty tired and went to bed around 10-11pm. My eyes sorta went back to normal after doing that for a few days.
One day i was really tired, so i think i went to bed at 10, woke up the next day at 12pm, yes thats 14 hours of sleep.
Well my mom said that i looked really good, and didn't have bag under my eyes, and i told her thats because i finally got a good nights rest, which was 14 hours. She always complains that i sleep too much, and that at my age (21) i should only sleep for 5 hours. haha yeah right! maybe if i smoked meth!
If i get less than 9 hours of sleep for 3 or more days i start hallucinating from lack of sleep.
I guess some just need way more sleep than others.

Just a curious question, if you do sleep for 12-14 hours do you feel like you have lived another life during the night? sometimes i wake up thinking i told my friend something and did all this stuff when it really didn't happen but i swore it did.

That pretty much sums up me crispexi. I sleep for an average of 12 hours. It's summer so blah! I typically don't get dark circle's under my eyes. I think it's because I'm never stressed. My mom could sleep for 14 hours and still wake up with those circles. Must be the stress of her job.

Originally posted by crispexi
She always complains that i sleep too much, and that at my age (21) i should only sleep for 5 hours. haha yeah right! maybe if i smoked meth!
If i get less than 9 hours of sleep for 3 or more days i start hallucinating from lack of sleep.
I guess some just need way more sleep than others.

How true is that! lol - I just graduated and moved back in with the rents...they complain b/c I wake up at 12:30 on the weekends - if I didn't sleep that late on weekends I wouldn't be able to function for the next work week!

I've noticed sometimes that when I wake up the bags under my eyes are real puffy and after a shower they go down a bit.

These are some interesting remedies - some I've heard of (rose petal water) and some I havn't (wet tea bags)

For me, I don't know if it's really linked to insomnia....I get to sleep fine now - I've had them ever since I left community college and went to a university...that's when the stress factors went sky-high, cuz I was working two jobs and not getting much sleep - sounds like something similar to what Cercery said earlier - maybe it's just a matter of time before they go away....it's hard to adjust to tho - I'm glad I wear glasses so that it covers it up for the most part.

If I didn't have the purple circles under my eyes, no one would recognize me.

I've been battling insomnia for six years, I rarely sleep more than 2 or 3 hours a night. I gave up on trying to make the bags go away after a while, but I know that hot showers tended to help them go away, for me anyways.

Well i guess the stress puts bags under your eyes. But sleeping at odd hours does too. Hormones are released during the nighttime and if you goto bed after 12am you don't get enough of them. It has an effect on your trachea and people who work 3rd shift usually get an enlarged trachea after doing that for a year.
I forgot to add that i am an insomniac. even when im tired i cant fall asleep that fast. takes me 1-3 hours. although i forgot that meditating helps!

I have inherited the dark circles under my eyes. The do seem worse with lack of sleep, and look even darker under certain lighting because of shadows over where it is already dark. This has even cost me a job because I looked "drugged" and am pretty sure that the I was fired unfairly.

So anyone know of any vitamins that minimize the dark circles?

Originally Posted by jrod
So anyone know of any vitamins that minimize the dark circles?

Most of the eye creams out there use vitamin K - I've tried some before and they work as long as you use them on a regular basis in the morning and at night - problem is I always forget to use it - lol

I've got a "friend" who has circles under his eyes b/c he is a junkie....it's sad that they discrimanted against you b/c of that w/o any kind of piss test

Here's an interesting concoction I found online for a home-remedy...

Make a paste from a teaspoon of tomato juice, 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice, a pinch of turmeric powder and a pinch of gram flour. Apply under eyes for 10 minutes.

Anyone bold enough to try it?

I've also heard of laser surgery to correct the problem....that's more than I can afford for something that has the potential to go away on its own...

I like useing chamomile tea bags on the dark circles or cucumber slices.
Both seem to help.
I've heard that dark circles could mean an iron deficiency though. Maybe a multivitamin with iron is what we need.

Here's an interesting quote from a website I found that sort of goes against what we have been thinking is the cause:

Contrary to popular belief, most dark circles have nothing to do with actual skin color changes. Rather, dark shadows form when changes in facial anatomy occur. A normal part of the aging process, the infraorbital fat pad (the fatty layer located just above the cheek bone and below the eye) thins producing a sunken appearance. Light reflects off these hollows creating the illusion of shadowy circles. So while boomers struggle with fat accumulating around hips, tummy and jaw line, the opposite problem is happening beneath the eyes.

This is one time that facial fat is a highly sought after commodity!
Source

This seems like a logical explination...but I don't think it's the only one, obviously.

Does anyone know if there's a medical term for this condition? I doubt they just say "bags" or "dark circles" - seems to simple for medicine - lol

one thing that ive found is that if i stop wearing eye make up, like black eyeliner and mascara for more than a week the circles do diminish, although not fade completley, I dont get enough sleep, even when I do I never really feel rested, Ive always got a bit of darkness under my eyes. Ive tried the teabags and the cucumber slices. Ive found the cucumber more effective than the tea, but the tea bags help when Ive got a mild headache for some reason.

I tried the cucumbers once and it felt really good but didn't do much for the circles.

I'm pretty sure this isn't because I'm getting old. I'm only 24! And I've had them at least since high school. Not constantly, but enough that I sometimes look just horrible.

I don't have dark circles under my eyes and never had that problem, but my daughter have them, her has to do with allergies and inflamation of the sinus, the best way to threat them is having her allergies at under control and with cool pads on her eyes and occurs some make up.

[edit on 7-8-2004 by marg6043]

I have had dark circles under my eyes since I was a young child. Nothing helps. Supposedly I'm told it's the Italian curse.

The Italian curse - lol...interesting nick-name....I'm getting flashes of Al Pacino in Insomnia.....I've never heard it called that - I assume that it is something of a family gene?

I have had circles under my eyes for so long that most of the time I don't even notice them any more,Unless I put my contacts in than I use make-up to try to lighten them up.[we can blame mine on my husband] hahaha .Actualy I've always had mine, but when I don't get enough sleep they get worse.

[edit on 17-9-2004 by freespirit]

Originally posted by freespirit
...but when I don't get enough sleep they get worse.

Yeah - same here....

It's funny - my friend decided he was going to become a self-made millionaire...and so he joined Quixstar!! He signed up for his $150 "free" gift package...lol...and in his little package was some eye cream - he's now moved on and squandered his money and decided that the Quixstar lifestyle just wasn't for him ...but the one good thing I got out of it was this cream - seems to work pretty good...too bad he paid $150 for it and I got the spoils