Best Way to Brighten Up Your Eyes

Your eyes reflect the state of your health and your lifestyle. Such varied factors as a poor diet, illness, hay fever, allergies, lack of sleep and staring at the computer screen, take their toll on the whole optical area, resulting in yellowish eye whites, bloodshot eyes and other problems, like redness and puffiness both above and below the eyes.

Solutions

• Bathe your eyes in an eye solution for thirty seconds once daily until they return to normal. Try Dr Hauschka’s Eye Freshener Concentrate, Optrex’s Eye Bath or make up your own saline solution by dissolving half a teaspoon of salt into 300ml of mineral water.

• To brighten your eye whites instantly, use whitening drops, such as D.R. Harris’, Visine’s or Optrex’s – these contain a vascoconstrictor to help shrink red capillaries. Avoid using too often, however, as overuse can cause the capillaries to dilate permanently.
• Don’t sit too close to computer screens; they are notorious for straining eyes.
• Read in a good light to prevent eye strain.
• Try the following eye exercise: look to the right, then the left; now look up and down. Repeat this procedure five times.
• Ensure that you always remove every scrap of eye make-up before you go to bed or you could wake up with sore, red eyes.
• Rest your eyes using the ‘palming’ technique: close your eyes and cup the palms of your hands over your eyes for at least one minute.
• Soothe your eyes by applying cotton-wool pads that have been soaked in witch hazel or milk. Leave on for ten minutes.

• If your eyes become sensitive or itchy, check that you are not allergic to any eyecare products, such as eye creams, gels, eye make­up remover, contact lense solution or eye make-up. If you suspect that one of them is causing irritation, you should be able to determine the trigger irritant by means of a process of elimination, that is, by not wearing one of your regular products for at least a couple of days.