Save Face: Doctor-Approved Eye Creams

In 2010, the British medical journal BMJ published a study confirming what we already know: We’re just not as pretty when we’re tired. Test subjects were rated as less attractive after being forced to stay awake for 31 hours versus when viewed after a good, normal night’s sleep. And the main aesthetic giveaway? Dark circles. “Stress or lack of sleep can put your body into fight-or-flight mode,” says New York–based dermatologist Dennis Gross, MD. “This means our brain leaches every single molecule of oxygen it can from the blood, so a darker, more deoxygenated blood flows through our veins and is most visible in the transparent skin under our eyes.” Plus, party-girl favorites­­—nicotine, alcohol, and caffeine—permanently weaken these veins, Gross says, causing “capillaries to leak iron and blood cells into the undereye area.”