Enhance Your Eyes

"The skin around the eyes is much thinner than the skin on the rest of your face, so you need to use a cream that offers excellent barrier repair," says Neil Sadick, MD, clinical professor of dermatology at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Look for formulas with a very rich emollient, like shea butter or cholesterol (try Clinique All About Eyes Rich or Kinerase Pro+ Therapy Ultra Rich Eye Repair). Sadick also recommends creams that contain hyaluronic acid, which draws in moisture. Retinol and vitamin C help build collagen (both ingredients are sensitive to light and air, so the cream should come in an opaque, airtight tube, like RoC Retinol Correxion Eye Cream).

At night, slather the stuff all over—even on your lids. In the morning, use a lighter cream or gel (like H2O Plus Eye Oasis Moisture Replenishing Treatment), and skip your lids. Pat cream or gel on the orbital bone, gently blending upward but stopping short of the lashline.

Strong, full brows are infinitely more flattering than overplucked ones. If you've overdone it but don't have any bare patches, brow powder can enhance their shape, says brow expert Anastasia Soare. Take a stiff, slanted powder brush and use small, feathery strokes over the length of your brows. If your brows are really sparse, first fill them in with a pencil "so the powder has something to grab on to," says Soare. The powder and pencil should match or be slightly lighter than your brow color (unless you have very fair blonde hair; then go one shade darker). Brush through your brows afterward with a clean mascara brush to lift away any excess product.

If you're like us, on any given day, you face some pretty serious dark circles. A primer on lightening up:

Texture: Makeup artist Sue Devitt recommends looking for an undereye concealer that contains the flexible plastic polymer nylon 12 (like Fresh Absolute Concealer or IsaDora Perfect Coverstick): "It ensures that the concealer will stretch with facial movement."

Color: A concealer a little lighter than your skin tone, with a slightly golden (or apricot, if you have dark skin) cast, will minimize dark circles. For more camouflage, makeup artist Matin Maulawizada uses a color corrector first. A bright yellow (Physicians Formula Gentle Cover Concealer Stick in Yellow) further conceals blue-tinged darkness on pale skin, orange (Bobbi Brown Corrector in Dark Peach) is an antidote to bruised tones on olive or dark skin, green (Couvrance Green Concealer Stick) counteracts redness, and mauve (Make Up For Ever Camouflage Cream in #18) softens very sallow tones.

Application: Use a small, slightly tapered brush, and start at the inner corners of the eyes. Work your way out, applying concealer only over dark areas. Concealer can accentuate the lines at the outer corners, and you probably don't have discoloration there. Set the concealer by dabbing on top a touch of translucent powder (Bare Escentuals i.d. Mineral Veil) with a small puff or shadow brush.

As any prizefighter can tell you, cold reduces swelling. So keep an eye gel in the fridge for those mornings when you wake up puffy. Pat it on for instant tightening (our favorites: Orlane B21 Oligo Vit-A-Min Cooling Balm Eye Contour and Sonia Kashuk Recede Under Eye Serum). When you have a little more time to depuff, cold cucumber slices or ice cubes wrapped in a piece of sheer fabric are ideal cooling compresses. For an anti-inflammatory effect, Sadick recommends soaking cotton pads in chilled soy milk (it's thinner than cow's milk, so more easily absorbed by the skin) and placing them over your eyes for 10 minutes. A couple of preemptive strikes: Elevate your head slightly when you sleep to prevent fluid from pooling around your eyes, and go easy on the soy sauce and popcorn (your belly isn't the only thing that gets bloated when you've indulged in too much salt).

The trend toward fuller brows doesn't mean veering into bushy territory. You still want to keep your brows in shape. Here's how:

Waxing: Soare waxes to eliminate the fine fuzz around her clients' brows, which makes them look more defined. Don't try to do it yourself (just ask our friend who had to pry wax off her eyelashes). If you're using a retinoid, your skin will be more susceptible to redness or irritation, so take a break from your cream for a few days before waxing.

Threading: This ancient technique involves pulling out the hair with a knotted thread held between the technician's fingers (and sometimes her teeth). It's a good way to remove soft fuzz, and Matin (who grew up in Afghanistan and mastered the skill from watching his sisters) finds it less irritating to the skin than waxing. (At the photo shoot, the model he demonstrated it on insisted it still hurt, though.)

Tweezing: After waxing or threading, most aestheticians pick up a tweezer to refine the brows—and this is the only kind of brow grooming you should attempt at home. "Don't try to do any shaping; just clean them up along the lines that were created by a professional," says Soare. And before you tweeze, fill in your brows with powder—it will prevent you from going too far.

Now that you've prepped your skin and brows, get beautiful eyes for day and smoky evening eyes.