Fact: 'Eye Cream' Is A Marketing Gimmick

Is there a difference between products sold as ‘eye’ creams vs ‘face’ creams? 🤔#askdrnatalia

This is probably the number one reason why ‘eye creams’ are totally unnecessary: because they are virtually identical in composition to regular standard face moisturisers. I spent a good few hours one day looking at a dozen face creams and the same brand's eye cream offering. In all the products I looked at, the ingredients on the two products were virtually identical.

The main difference was the inclusion of a sunscreen in the face product and also the ‘richness’ of the product. Face creams tend to have more urea, paraffin and glycerin type ingredients making them more ‘greasy’ for the most part while eye creams tended to have more silica, mica or dimethicone presumably to help them give the illusion of smoothening the skin around the eyes temporarily and imparting a more ‘light’ texture.

The idea that eye creams are formulated to be less irritating was definitely not identifiable from looking at the ingredients; all the products I looked at had the same type of preservatives and fragrances as the corresponding face cream. Literally the only difference between face cream and eye cream that I found was the size of the pot and the corresponding price tag; the face cream is usually always better value! So please don’t waste your money buying a separate eye cream – just dab your face cream around your eyes. Eye cream is a marketing invention just to sell you more products but this time in cute little (expensive) jars and tubes.