Nixing bags of trouble

The cause of under-eye bags varies from person to person and the area can be difficult to treat, but all is not lost, Serena Solomon.

ou look so tired.’’ Anyone with dark under-eye bags has heard this wellintended, reverse compliment many times. No matter how much sleep you get, those purple, puffy circles engulfing the delicate skin around your eyes just won’t go away.

That’s because the cause of under-eye bags varies from person to person. For some, genetics can play a role, as well as pigmentation, especially in darker skin. Fat loss in the face as we age can give the eyes a sunken look, pushing the area further into the shadows that emphasise dark circles.

‘‘The eye area is one of the first areas to start ageing,’’ said Dr Kirshni Appanna, a cosmetic doctor at Jeunesse MedSpa in Hamilton.

Lifestyle, including what we eat, how much water we drink, the sleep we get, whether we smoke, our allergies, and our stress levels can also impact the health of our skin. This is particularly true under our eyes where the skin is at its thinnest.

‘‘It’s one of the hardest things to treat,’’ Appanna said. ‘‘There is usually not just one thing that is happening.’’

Adding volume to sunken areas is how Dr Robert Beulink, a cosmetic doctor in Auckland, treats under-eye bags. He does this through either fillers or fat transfers.

As people age, faces become increasingly ‘‘skeletonised’’, as fat disappears, creating a hallowed look, Beulink said. This is especially obvious around the eyes, as the area essentially sinks into the face.

‘‘It is the hallowing that catches the light and shadows show up on photos from selfies to wedding photos,’’ he said. ‘‘It makes people look tired.’’

Derma fillers, which involves injecting what Beulink describes as medical putty, can be completed within an hour and comes with little to no downtime after the procedure.

The downside is fillers don’t last forever and Beulink typically sees patients return after 18 months for a top up.

The eye area ‘‘is the most difficult area on the face to treat’’, said Beulink. He advised those seeking treatment to go with practitioners who are experienced and highly trained even if they are more expensive, adding that derma fillers can result in lumps, bruises and even darken the area – the substance injected has a blue tinge – if not done correctly.

The next step up is a fat transfer, which is essentially a more permanent, but more invasive version of fillers that treats the whole face. Beulink puts patients under a local anaesthetic with a mild sedative and performs what is essentially a mini liposuction to remove fat from elsewhere in the body to inject into the face

Fixing sunken eyes using derma fillers typically costs around $1400 with a highly experienced doctor, Beulink said.

A fat transfer costs more than $10,000.