Three different problems wear the same face. Two minutes in front of a mirror tells you which one you have — and stops you buying the wrong thing for the third year running.
"Dark circles" is not a diagnosis. It is a description of an appearance that has at least three separate causes, each responding to something different. This is why the eye cream your friend swears by did nothing for you, and why some people fix it in a fortnight and others never do.
Here are the three, and the tests that separate them.
Type 1: Pigmentation
What it is: actual melanin in the skin under the eye. Genetic in most cases, more common in deeper skin tones and in people of South Asian, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern descent. It can also be post-inflammatory — the legacy of years of rubbing, eczema or hay fever.
What it looks like: brown or grey-brown rather than blue or purple. The colour is in the skin itself, evenly spread, often extending onto the lid.
The test: gently stretch the skin sideways with two fingers. If the colour stays exactly as it was, it is pigment — you have moved the skin and the colour came with it.
What helps: pigment-active ingredients over months, not weeks — niacinamide, vitamin C, azelaic acid, or a prescription option from a dermatologist. Daily sunscreen, because UV deepens it. Hydration and patches will make the area look better but will not touch the colour.
Type 2: Vascular — the blue-purple kind
What it is: the blood vessels beneath very thin skin, showing through. Under-eye skin is around 0.5 mm thick, and it thins further with age. Tiredness, dehydration, allergies and alcohol all dilate those vessels and make them more visible.
What it looks like: blue, purple or reddish, worse in the morning and after a bad night, better after a good one. Often a fine tracery of visible vessels rather than a flat block of colour.
The test: stretch the skin sideways again. If the colour fades noticeably as the skin thins and tightens, it is vascular.
What helps: this is the type that responds to the things everyone recommends. Sleep, hydration, treating the allergies, cold in the morning, caffeine topically to constrict the vessels briefly. Longer term, anything that thickens the skin slightly — peptides, PDRN, retinoids used carefully — makes the vessels less visible. This is also the type where eye patches genuinely earn their place.
Type 3: Structural — the hollow
What it is: not colour at all, but shadow. The fat pad under the eye shrinks and descends with age, the orbital bone becomes more prominent, and the resulting groove casts a shadow. Some people have it in their twenties; it is partly inherited.
What it looks like: a defined hollow or groove running from the inner corner diagonally outwards. It looks worse under overhead light and better under light from below.
The test: tilt your face up towards a ceiling light. If the darkness deepens sharply, it is a shadow. Then hold a small mirror below your face and look down into it — if the darkness largely disappears, it is structural, and you have just proved it is light and not pigment.
What helps: honestly, not skincare. Hyaluronic acid filler is what this is for, placed by someone who does a lot of tear troughs, because it is one of the least forgiving areas on the face. Everything topical can do is keep the skin above it thick and well hydrated so the groove reads less sharply — worth doing, but not a fix.
Most people have two
Pure single types are the exception. The common combination over fifty is vascular plus structural: thinning skin showing vessels, sitting over a groove that has deepened.
That is workable. The vascular part responds well to the things listed above, and improving it makes the structural part less obvious even though nothing has changed about the bone. Fixing 60% of the problem is a perfectly good outcome, and it is what a realistic routine achieves.
What to do this week
- Do the two tests in daylight — stretch, then the ceiling-light and mirror-below check. Write down what you find.
- Photograph it in the same light, same time of day. You will not remember accurately in six weeks.
- Fix the free things first: sleep, an extra pillow, salt, alcohol, and any untreated hay fever. Rubbing your eyes because of allergies causes all three types to get worse.
- Match the treatment to the type, not to the advert.
- Give it eight weeks before you judge, and compare the photographs rather than your memory.
Frequently asked
Why are my dark circles worse some days?
That is the vascular component. It moves with sleep, salt, alcohol, allergies and hydration. Pigment and hollows do not change day to day.
Does concealer make them worse over time?
No, but heavy concealer settling into dehydration lines emphasises them. A hydrated surface takes less product and looks better with it.
Will an eye cream fix a hollow?
No. Anything claiming to is describing a shadow that photographed better under different lighting.
Do dark circles mean I am unhealthy?
Usually not. Persistent, one-sided, or suddenly worsening circles are worth mentioning to a doctor, as are ones alongside fatigue and breathlessness, which can point to anaemia.
