Whether you call them “smile lines,” “laugh lines,” “crow’s feet,” or “eye wrinkles,” if you have them, you probably wouldn’t mind making them go away. Trust me, I get it. Because the skin around the eye is the most delicate, this can be one of the toughest areas to keep wrinkle-free. How often have we seen someone with an otherwise flawless complexion give away their age when they laugh or smile?
If you have smile lines and would prefer them to go away, I have some valuable information for you. If you don’t have wrinkles around your eyes and prefer to keep it that way, this article is also for you.
Understanding Smile Lines: Causes and Prevention
There are three types of eye wrinkles. Most people have smile lines and varying amounts of each.
Dynamic Wrinkles
When you smile and make other facial expressions, the flexible skin around your eyes expands and contracts. These are dynamic wrinkles. This type of wrinkle is not ever-present. You see them when you’re making certain facial expressions, like smiling. When you stop, the wrinkles disappear.
Static Wrinkles
Over time, the skin sustains a certain amount of damage, resulting in unevenness. Additionally, dynamic wrinkles can become static wrinkles as the skin continuously folds in the same way. Additional causes of static wrinkles include sun damage, smoking, poor nutrition, and insufficient hydration.
Wrinkle Folds
As we all know, our skin gets thinner, dryer, and loses its elasticity as we age. Sagging skin around the eyes can make smile lines more pronounced.
Preventing Smile Lines
It’s not all bad news, though. There are a number of ways you can prevent or slow the formation of eye wrinkles, and you don’t need to stop smiling.
- Break harmful habits – Smoking reduces blood flow to your skin. If you are serious about skincare, smoking has got to go. Many of us enjoy a drink or cocktail once in a while, but alcohol dehydrates you, and nowhere is that more evident than the skin. If you drink, drink moderately and consume plenty of water.
- Use UV Protection – In addition to a broad-spectrum SPF 30 (or higher) sunscreen, wear sunglasses with UV protective lenses. This will not only give you an extra layer of protection, but it will help you avoid squinting.
- Maintain a Healthy Diet – This will not only make you feel better, but it will improve your skin from head to toe. Your diet should contain a high level of antioxidants, vitamin C, vitamin E, and omega-3 fatty acids. You can find these in fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and lean proteins.
- Sleep – Make sure you’re getting enough. If you don’t get sufficient sleep, less oxygen gets to your eyes, and the veins become more prominent. This, in turn, causes swelling, which can contribute to fine lines and wrinkles.
- Gentle Skincare – It’s amazing how many people find the right eyecare cream but damage their skin while putting it on. When applying eye cream, you should dot the product under your eye around the orbital bone. Use your ring fingers because they have the lightest touch. Don’t rub or swirl the eye cream into the skin. Pat it gently, allowing it to spread under your fingertips.
- Eye Creams – I’m always surprised when I find out that someone goes to the trouble of establishing a skincare regimen but uses regular facial moisturizer around their eyes. Eye creams are specifically designed to be gentle and are heavier than facial moisturizers. The objective of an eye moisturizer is rapid absorption. While you may see some of the same ingredients in eye creams and facial creams — retinol, peptides, hyaluronic acid, glycerin, etc. — the ingredients are found in different concentrations in eye creams.
Choosing Products for Smile Line Reduction
Every step of your skincare regimen is important, but finding the right eye cream may be the trickiest part to nail down. Here are some ingredients you should look for when buying an eye cream.
- Antioxidants – If you’ve read my column before, you know I stress the importance of antioxidants. Well, here they are again. Free radicals can damage fibroblasts, which reduces the production of collagen. They can also damage the elastin, causing your skin to become looser.
- Retinol – This is a form of Vitamin A, which also neutralizes free radicals and stimulates collagen production.
- Peptides – This is a string of amino acids that are used in collagen and elastin production. Eye creams are designed for the skin to absorb them in the area of greatest need.
- Hyaluronic Acid – Hydrated skin appears to be thicker, which helps to erase lines and wrinkles. Hyaluronic acid helps lock in the moisture around your eyes.
- Ceramides – Ceramides are fats that comprise about a third of your epidermis. They protect the skin while helping you to retain skin moisture.
Your eye cream may not contain all of these ingredients, and certain skin types don’t require high concentrations of every ingredient. However, if you don’t see at least some of these active ingredients in an eye cream, you have to wonder if it will actually work.
Lifestyle Factors: Habits That Support Smile Line Diminishment
Have you ever heard the fitness expression, “You can’t outrun a bad diet?” The same could apply to skincare. No amount of deep wrinkle filler or eye cream can counter bad habits. The following is a list of dos and don’ts to help eliminate fine lines around the eyes.
Do This to Prevent Smile Lines:
- Use a cream that’s specifically designed for the delicate skin around the eyes.
- Use a gentle face cleanser before applying moisturizers and eye cream.
- Get sufficient sleep every night. Insufficient sleep results in baggy eyes, which lead to fine lines and wrinkles.
- Maintain a diet that’s rich in antioxidants to promote collagen production and reduce damage to the elastin in your skin.
- Use a gentle SPF 30 sunscreen that’s designed for use around the eyes. Thick, viscous body sunscreens can clog pores, damaging this delicate skin.
- Wear UV protection sunglasses to prevent squinting and to add extra protection for the delicate skin around the eyes.
Don’t Do This to Avoid Laugh Lines:
- Smoke – If you smoke tobacco products and are serious about skincare, you need to quit. Smoking reduces blood flow to the eyes, and nicotine can aggravate dermatological conditions.
- Drink to Excess – If you are a regular drinker or binge frequently, you are harming your skin. Alcohol reduces hydration and disrupts sleep. Both effects are bad for the skin and this first becomes apparent around the eyes.
- Tan Without Sunscreen – You might have read that you should get 20 minutes of sunshine every day. It helps with your mental health and aids in the body’s Vitamin D production. However, the harmful UV rays of the sun damage the skin, destroy collagen, and introduce free radicals.
- Eat Harmful Foods – You don’t have to give up desserts entirely, but if you routinely consume sugar, it can cause glycation of the collagen in your skin, which makes it dryer and stiffer. You should also avoid processed and fried foods. Cleaning up your diet will not only help your eye skin remain smooth and radiant, but it will help you feel better.
- Drinking Caffeinated Beverages – I specify beverages here because some eye cream products contain caffeine to activate the cells. Caffeinated in the body, on the other hand, is a diuretic, which contributes to dehydration.
- Sacrifice Sleep – Insufficient or restless sleep will wreak havoc on the skin around your eyes. Schedule yourself sufficient hours to rest.
If these lists represent an enormous lifestyle change for you, consider tackling one or two at a time. Some are relatively easy, like wearing sunglasses, whereas others (quitting smoking, dietary changes, etc.) may take a lot more effort. All of these factors are important, but you can knock out a few with just a little effort.
Building a Daily Routine for Smile Line Reduction
We’ve discussed many times that you should have a daytime and nighttime skincare routine. While the routines have some minor differences, both involve the application of eye cream. As a reminder, apply eye cream after serum but before moisturizer. That will ensure that the eye cream is absorbed into your skin before you apply other products.
Choosing the Right Products: A Guide to Smile-Line-Friendly Skincare
If you don’t know which eye cream to buy, these tips will help you narrow your search.
- Choose eye cream products that contain ingredients that promote collagen production, improve hydration, and contain antioxidants.
- Retinol is found in many eye creams and can work magic on fine lines and wrinkles. Look for eye creams that contain this vital collagen booster.
- Find products that are specifically designed for the eyes. There are many excellent skincare products that work well on other areas of the face but absorb too slowly for eye skin.
- Read product reviews from users. People are always happy to report what works and what doesn’t. If a product doesn’t get results, you’ll know it from the reviews.
You can never go wrong trying Serious Skincare products. Our cosmeceutical-grade skincare products are highly rated by our customers and clinically tested to achieve optimal outcomes for your skin.