Beauty Secret #3: Swollen Eyes Cure

For a while now, I've noticed my double eyelids are looking thicker than normal. Then I realized they were swollen even though I wasn't crying at night, so I set out to find a cure. A good way to see if they're swollen is to close your eyes and gently use 2 fingers to pat over the eyelid. If you don't feel a crease between your brow bone and your eyeball or you can't tell where your eye socket is, most likely your eyes are swollen. Another way is to open your eyes and see how different your eyes look from after a good night's sleep. If there is more lid space than usual or your eyelid has tripled or folded under, those are all signs of eye swelling.

Some causes of swollen eyes can be too much salt intake, allergies, using irritating eye makeup or makeup remover, too much water before bed, using too much eye cream around the top of the eye, or not sleeping elevated enough on your pillow. Other causes can be stress, hormone changes, or fatigue.

Now some cures I've found that really helps the swelling go down:

• Wash face with ice cold water (which is not my favorite but does wake me up in the morning)
• Limit sodium intake (overall better for your health)
• Drink plenty of water to clean out your system (but not within an hour of going to bed)
• Place two slices of cool cucumber on the eyes for 4-5 minutes
• Chill leftover green tea bags in the refrigerator, place them over closed eyelids for 3-4 minutes
• For allergies causes, find out what the allergy is and try to stay away from rubbing your eyes after touching the cause or avoid being around it as much as possible
• Try a soothing eye cream with aloe and Vitamin E and chilling it in the fridge before applying

The best thing I've tried is this gel eye mask I bought a while ago from The Body Shop. I just leave it in the fridge an hour before I sleep then take it out and lay it on my eyes right before I sleep. In the morning, my eyes swell a lot less. Sometimes I use it for 5 minutes in the morning too, right before I go to work.