Puffy Eyes Remedy: 5 Beauty Tricks You Can Do at Home

by: Linda Robison / Facial Fitness Specialist @ ABZ

Puffy Eyes Remedy: Check out these simple DIY tricks to deal with under-eye bags. They work well and are also nice for relaxing your skin.

Best treatment for bags under eyes

1. Eye massage: Natural remedy

One of the easiest puffy eyes remedy is to try a gentle eye massage. This is the most natural, inexpensive, and simplest way to make eyes look less puffy.

This doesn't require anything except a few minutes of your time.

Gently massaging the eye area and certain points on your face and neck helps to encourage lymphatic draining and decongest the area. 

natural remedies to reduce puffy eyes

A quick mini-eye massage using your fingers: Before starting apply a little cream or oil on your face including your eyelids.

  • Forehead: Using your middle finger, start at your forehead, using medium pressure, slide your fingers outward following the arrows shown above. Repeat 3 times.
  • Eyes: Using your middle finger, start at the upper inner corner of your eyes and slide your fingers in a smooth circle around until you end up at the bottom inner corner of your eyes. Repeat 3 times.
  • Cheeks: Using your TWO middle fingers, follow the arrows as shown above. Repeat 3 times.
  • Chin: Using your thumbs, follow the arrows as shown above. Repeat 3 times.
  • Neck: Using your thumbs, follow the arrows as shown above. It helps to rest your fingers on the back of your neck and raise your head high until your skin is taut. Repeat 3 times.

You can also try eye exercises to help improve the look of puffy eyes and lessen the look of eye wrinkles and crow's feet too.  

2.  Eye massaging wand

Kansa wand used for under eye and face massage.My kansa wand.

You can also use a massaging wand to reduce puffy eyes. I prefer this wide smooth ayurvedic wand over the eye roller.

What's nice is it can be used on crow's feet, between the eye brows or on the whole face, chin, and neck for a lymphatic facial workout.

The wand also helps increase skin glow and is easy to use. You can give yourself a great eye massage while watching TV. 

The Kansa Wand not only helps reduce under eye puffiness, but can help de-bloat your entire face and under chin area. 

P.S. A massaging wand is also helpful if you have trouble using your fingers/hands due to sore joints or arthritis.

3. Exercise to reduce puffy eyes

older women jumping up and downExercises helps reduce eye puffiness.

Exercise works as a puffy eye remedy - you ask? Yes!

Light exercise can help get the fluid moving and decongest the eye area. If you have some time to spare, consider doing a quick workout.

Any exercise will work, especially ones that involve sweating or jumping up and down like:

  • walking 
  • jumping on mini-trampoline
  • bouncing on an exercise ball
  • light jogging

All of these can help encourage lymphatic drainage thus reducing trapped fluid in your eyes, face, and whole body and help to detox too. Nice bonus!

"We know from research that exercise helps lymph move through the lymphatic system. This might help reduce swelling. Exercise makes the muscles contract and pushes lymph through the lymph vessels." - Cancer Research UK

Resource: The Miracle of Lymph

4. Natural puffy eye remedies you can make at home

tea bags to reduce eye bags.

We found a ton of home remedies for under eye puffiness ranging from frozen peas to cold tea bags. The most common natural remedy for swollen eyes is a cold compress (like a cold washcloth, cold spoons, or an eye mask).

The cold helps constrict blood vessels and reduce swelling. However, some can be messy. I'll start with my least favorite:

Cold tea bags for swollen eyes

While tea bags might work a bit to reduce eye swelling, the tannins in the tea also can dry the delicate under eye skin - sometimes making the look worse. So proceed with caution if you have extra dry under eye skin.

Start with non-flavored caffeinated tea bags. The caffeine helps constrict blood vessels and reduce swelling. If your eyes are red and irritated, then try chamomile which helps calm irritation, redness, and inflammation.

To prepare:

Ok so here's what you need to do:

  • seep two tea bags in a cup of hot water for five minutes 
  • put the tea bags into a container
  • place in the refrigerator until they're cold

Cold tea bags should have worked pretty well, right? The cold helped reduce inflammation and the tannins helped constrict blood vessels, which helped reduce dark circles.

This should have been the perfect solution? Well, not for me!

The tannins in the tea dried the delicate skin around my eyes and left me with crepey/ crinkly fine lines. So looks like I traded one problem for another!

Besides, who's got that much time to sit around each morning with cold tea bags on their eyes?

Frozen Peas

A frozen bag of peas works well, since the peas are little; the bag conforms to the contours of your eyes and face.  It's soft and feels comforting when placed over the eyes.

And unlike wet tea bags, there is no mess even when the peas begin to thaw.

Note: When using frozen items on your eyes for puffiness, take precautions to avoid damaging delicate skin:

1. Wrap the frozen item in a cloth.
2. Gently apply to puffy areas.
3. Hold for 10-15 mins max.
4. Take breaks to prevent overexposure.
5. If discomfort occurs, remove immediately.

Following these steps safely reduces puffiness.

Frozen teaspoons

If you're out of cucumbers, anything cold can help, but cold teaspoons work well and they fit nicely over the whole eye area. Keep a few old teaspoons in the freezer.

They feel wonderful, are so easy to use and never drip or melt so there is no mess!!

cucumbers for puffy eyes

Cold cucumbers

This is a classic puffy eyes remedy and feels wonderful. Cold sliced cucumbers placed over each eyelid might help reduce the swelling too. Cucumbers contain natural astringent properties.

Place a thin slice over each and sit back and relax for about 10 minutes. If you have time - replace with two more slices and sit back and relax for 5 more minutes.

5. Puffy eyes remedy - eye lift serums

Ok, so I've tried about 100 different under eye creams, serums, and lotions over the last 25 years.

Most eye serums to reduce puffiness have a similar function, they "contract" the skin by drying it a bit which causes the skin to "lift" and helps smooth out puffiness and fine lines.

While many of the serums I've tried worked to reduce puffiness, they also dried my skin too much and left a whitish film.

But the one I use now works the best for me.  Not a miracle, no over-the-counter product is, but much better than all the others I've tried.

You can watch a video on how it works. Or go to the purchase page for more info about ingredients and costs. 

Do you have any puffy eye remedies to share?

I've spent over 25 years dealing with puff eyes and have tried ALL kinds of treatments. But if you've found a puffy eyes remedy that works well, please share with us! 

under eye lines before and after

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