N Skin Care Alert

Myth on under-eye circles debunked

A lot of people think that under-eye circles are caused by lack of sleep. Right? WRONG!

The truth is, under-eye circles that are purplish-blue are common among those with fair skin. It results from a genetic tendency to accumulate blood in veins under the eyes. The skin around the eyes is very thin, so blood vessels show through the skin more.

Dark brown circles are also common in people with olive, brown or even black skin. These are pigments which the body produces to protect delicate skin under the eyes, especially when it is exposed to the sun.

As we age, the thin layer of fat that we have all over our face shrinks or atrophies. As a result, the skin lays more directly over the muscles and blood vessels in the eye area. This can accentuate the darkness and sagging.

Here are some tips on how to avoid under-eye circles:

Get at least 7 to 8 hours of sleep. Lie on your back with your head on a pillow to keep blood moving.

Workout in the morning to jumpstart blood circulation.

   Use sun protection daily, whether indoors or outdoors.

Apply eye cream daily to add moisture to the skin's surface and to reflect light and give your eyes a brighter tone.

ý In the News

Hemlines & Punchlines
By Tessa  C. Mauricio
The Manila Times

Lips and nipples —pretty in pink

Let’s do some troubleshooting today.

What do you do when: 1) you don’t want your mother to know that you’re smoking; and 2) you don’t want your husband to notice that you’re aging? (OK­—for the more liberal readers, your lover or partner too).

Answer: You keep your lips and nipples pink.

Poets, photographers and artists (at least the majority of them) have always painted the picture of a youthful woman as one who looks ever so fresh, with “the rosiest of lips,” and the “the pinkest of nipples.”

Of course, womankind knows that looking ever so fresh forever is next to impossible, what with the habits we develop and the effects of turning a year older every 12 months.  But as always, science is bound to have a solution to reverse unwanted changes that take place.  Even on your  lips and nipples.

Now, there is a one of a kind product in the local market that claims it can lighten darkened lips and perk nipples back to their pinkish glory. It’s from the proudly Philippine-made Godiva line of beauty products, quite straightforwardly called the Godiva Lightening Lip Gloss.

The brand’s owner, pharmacist Fred Reyes, texted me about his latest “breakthrough” just after New Year’s and was extremely excited about it.  “It really works!” he eventually exclaimed over the phone, though I haven’t checked out his lips recently.

“Does it really?” I asked him, my voice up to breaking glass level.  So he went on to stop me from shrilling away and proved it to me by recounting how Godiva developed the product in the first place.

“It all started with an e-mail from an African-American guy,” he began—one of Godiva’s regular online customers, apparently. “He wrote that while the Godiva whitening products he was using lightened his overall skin tone dramatically, he was now faced with another dilemma: dark lips.

“Bothered with this predicament, he asked the company if they could come up with a lip balm that could safely and effectively lighten his dark lips.”  To cut a long story short, Godiva obliged and made a special lip balm and sent it to the obvious metrosexual free of charge.  A few months later, the guy wrote again to tell them that his lips had indeed the same effect. His dark lips had lightened considerably.

Word on the “magical lip balm” spread like wildfire through the Internet and Godiva was soon flooded with requests from its international customers to market the lip balm on its websites (www.godivaskincare.com and www.i-godiva.com). It even became a favorite topic in various Internet skin care fora.  The demand for the product—coupled with its proven effectiveness in brightening dull, dark lips—just seemed too great to be ignored, and happily, Godiva has been making lots and lots of it ever since.

To be sure, I checked out the story and lifted one of the testimonies from the website.  It said: “I definitely see a lightening effect so far. My upper lip is now a dark red, my bottom lip a brighter, redder color.”

Finally, after marketing the product online for a year, Godiva has decided to sell the lip-gloss on its shelves, especially since they had also discovered that it could lighten nipples (no harm in trying, I guess).  The secret ingredient, according to Mr. Reyes, is Godiva’s star product licorice extract, which has long been proven—even by other brands—as a safe and effective lightener.

I do have my samples to prove the product for myself but I haven’t had a week to give my own testimony.  All I can say that it has helped moisturize my parched lips, which is not to say that I smoke Mom!

If you need this particular troubleshooting beauty product, the Godiva Lightening Lip Gloss is now available at leading department stores, supermarkets and drugstores nationwide.

(Tessa C. Mauricio is a beauty and fashion columnist of The Manila Times, a daily newspaper.To view the article in The Manila Times' online version, click here.) 

(For international orders, visit www.godivaskincare.com.)

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