Right! Let’s kick things off with an unpopular opinion: Eye creams that claim to blitz dark circles are a load of pooh! Sure, those that contain caffeine can constrict your blood vessels, making the vascular network beneath your eyes appear somewhat less visible. But they can only do so much. Also, in 99,9% of cases, dark circles are simply due to the fact that the skin under your eyes is a lot thinner than the rest of your face. This is why you can see all that vascular shizz going on underneath and have to endure people saying crap like “Shame, you look tired today…” even when you’re feeling vris.

For me,  the most effective way to get rid of dark under-eye circles is to get a little filler injected underneath each eye. This “thickens” up the skin and effectively reduces the look of circles in a flash. Being a vain biets that was about to head off to super sweaty Borneo, I reckoned it was the perfect time for a little circle-blitzing filler. South East Asia is legit waaaay too humid to wear make-up and I wanted to look and feel magnificent at all times, emerging from the ocean like a mermaid, not that girl who crawled out the well in The Ring.

Like, is you orrait?

Fortunately, getting my filler fix was easy peasy thanks to the needle genius that is Dr Kamlyn Pillay. I rolled up to Wembley Clinic in Gardens (yep, they’re the fancy pants clinic in the gym) and got slathered in numbing cream. When it was needle time I didn’t feel a thing (like – NOTHING!) and the entire procedure, excluding the wait for the topical anaesthetic to kick in, took about 20 minutes or less.

It’s interesting to note that, zapping circles isn’t just a case of squirting filler right beneath your eyes. If you did, it could slide downwards and make you look worse by creating a puffy under-eye bag. Eek! To prevent this, Dr P injected Voluma, a slightly more viscous (“thicker”) filler to the tops of my cheeks to create a dam wall and then filled the “pools” (the circle area) with a regular “thin” filler called Volbella. Both of these are hyaluronic acid-based. The moment he explained this to me, my heart started to beat a li’l faster. I did NOT want filler in my cheeks. I did NOT want to look like a puffy-faced RHOBH hamster. OMG! OMG! I started to take great comfort in the fact that all filler can be dissolved with hyaluronidase and started to look around his office to see if I could spot it. Happily, it turns out that this “wall” sits below your skin, is completely invisible and, if it’s changed the shape of my face even microscopically, I can’t see it. Phew!

While Dr P typically likes to let the first bit of filler settle and then do a top-up a few weeks later, I had to hop on a plane and was so happy with my results I don’t feel like a need round two. (Admittedly, my dark circles were never super duper bad. I’m just super freakin’ vain.)

Afterwards, I expected to walk out with two black eyes and spend the weekend holed up at home with Mr Delivery and Netflix. But surprise, surprise. The only sign I’d been tweaked was a little redness under each eye that faded fast. Can you believe I’d cancelled all my plans? Mere MINUTES after my treatment, I was stuffing myself with sushi in a restaurant and nobody was the wiser.

It’s now been a couple of months since I got undereye filler and I’m still thrilled with the results. Nobody would EVER know I’d had anything done if it wasn’t for the fact that I blab about it to everyone. In doing so, I’ve actually met lots of other people who’ve done the same thing and, interestingly, a large number of them are men!

I still wear concealer under my eyes, but my circles have dramatically softened so I definitely use a lot less. Also, when I roam around without makeup on I just look like a girl without make-up as opposed to “tired” or “sick”. Depending on how fast my body metabolises the filler, my fresh new look should last for at least a year. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat!

Now, here’s the disclaimer bit. I’ve made this seem easy breezy and IT IS… if you go see a highly-skilled doc! While Botox is the kind of thing a well-trained monkey could do, filler is a serious art form. You need to go to a very experienced injector as your results will be very dependent on their ability. Please don’t go just anywhere! Find out how often your doc does under eye filler. Ask to see before and after shots of their work. If they get weird and start citing patient-client confidentiality, RUN! Dr P showed me loads of pics of people he’d worked on (full-face obscured, so don’t worry, your secret is safe) and it was good to see all the magic he’d worked on people so much worse off than me, particularly those who had dark circles AND sunken-in eye areas. He’d also done a lot of brilliant corrective work, fixing people who’d seen rubbish docs and end up looking worse. Cost-wise, this will vary depending on the amount of filler you’d have to use. If you go and see Dr Pillay, you can expect to pay from R4000 to R9000, depending on how deep your troughs are.

Anyhoo, the bottom line here, to use a lame analogy, is that anyone can become a hairdresser but few can cut your fringe the way you like it. It’s the same with aesthetic docs. Please ensure you go to one who knows what they’re doing. This is a very safe procedure that gets done every day but you need to see someone who knows their shizz.

Questions? Feel free to chat with me in the comments section. I know this is the kind of post that inspires a zillion DMs, but chatting here is ideal ‘cos your question might answer somebody else’s.

Love, love

Leigh

P.S. Are you glad I’m back?

Lei