French beauty brand Filorga have recently launched a new eye cream and this one’s rather nice. I wasn’t in love with their existing eye cream as it was packaged in a jar and, if you’re a regular reader, you’ll know I don’t like cosmetics that expose it’s actives to air. The newbie, however, Eyes-Absolute (R840 at Skinmiles.com), lives in an air-tight tube so already we’re off to a good start. It also sports a ‘cyro-applicator’, a very fancy word for what’s essentially a metal tip that lends application a cooling-sensation that, Filorga reckons, will help the product better penetrate your skin.

Promise-wise, it aims to help minimise the look of fine lines and dark circles while improving firmness, ‘brightness’ and the condition of your lashes.

As far as lines go, my first line of defence has always been what I consider the most effective solution – retinol* and Botox. But I can’t use retinol every day and not everybody is comfortable with needles so having an eye cream you can use day and night is a nice gap filler. Filorga’s formula relies on a tripeptides with a Botox-like action to help minimise muscle contraction. Obviously this is no match for Botox itself, but topical muscle relaxants have been proven to make a mild, but still visible difference. You won’t see this instantly, however, the effect is cumulative. Still, thanks to mega-plumping hyaluronic acid, Eye-Absolute can help minimise the look of fine dehydration lines, something you’ll notice shortly after the very first use.

Dark circles? These are always super tricky to beat. Often people have them simply due to the fact that the skin under their eyes is thinner so you can see all the vessels that lie beneath that. (If this is you, your best bet to blitz them is with concealer or a temporary filler that’s injected under the skin. I have friends who’ve done the latter and it works like a bomb.) Still, if you’ve got poor circulation in this area, it can look worse than it has to, so Filorga’s eye cream aims to lessen the impact by using peptides that help improve blood flow.

In regards to firmness, Filorga are relying on two botanicals (silk tree and St. Paul’s wort) to help boost the production of collagen and protect their degradation. I can’t really comment here as I don’t know too much about them or if they’d be more effective than more extensively proven collagen-boosters like retinol, AHAs or vitamin C. They are living up to the brightness promise, however, thanks to the inclusion of illuminating soft-focus pigments to give your eye area a super subtle but instant glow.

Now, last but not least, let’s talk lashes! There are several very simple topical vitamins and hydrators that can benefit hair and many of them can be found in the most basic of moisturisers. I totally thought Filorga would just pull one out of its formula and be all ‘and it contains X so it conditions too!’ which would be true, but no more exciting than what you’re probably using already. But, happily, it’s actually more sophisticated than that. Filorga’s using an isoflavone and tetrapeptide mix that inhibits the creation of DHT, a hormone that shortens the growth cycle of your lashes. So, with regular use, your lashes don’t get the message to stop growing and stick around a little longer than they should, resulting in a denser-looking lash line. Who doesn’t love that?

Love, love

Leigh

P.S. Filorga’s isn’t the only eye cream that’s made a good impression on me. I’ll be chatting about another one next week so keep an eye on the blog.

*Every time I mention a retinol serum I get a flurry of questions as to which ones I recommend so in a bid to pre-empt them here’s the answer: My current favourites are Exuviance Super Retinol Concentrate (R850, both at Dermastore and Skinmiles), NeoStrata Skin Active Retinol + NAG Complex (R1 360, Skinmiles), Dermaceutic Active Retinol 0,5 (R950, Skinmiles) and Dermaceutic Activ Retinol 1.0 (R1 010, Skinmiles).

In order of potency, Exuviance is 0,25%, NeoStrata is 0,5% and Dermaceutic lists their percentage on the bottle (0,5% and 1%). The key is to start low and build up a tolerance. I’m currently using the NeoStrata product simply because its the strongest of what I have on hand and even then I can’t use it every day.

All of these products, with the exception of Dermaceutic, are available from both Dermastore and Skinmiles but I’ve listed the store in brackets where the pricing is currently the best.

I still have a lot of love for Paula’s Choice retinol serums but now that the cost of delivery to South Africa is through the roof they’ve fallen off my radar in favour of the aforementioned that are just as effective and easy to access.