You Ask, I Answer: Today's reader questions talk about undereye puffiness, eye creams, and undertones
I love it when readers send me questions (if not I wouldn't be blogging!), and I love responding to them. Because a lot of my readers are pretty interested in skincare and ingredients, I get a lot of questions that require some time to research and reply to, so I often am unable to respond immediately, although I try my best! Through the years, I've also noticed that some questions are repeated as well. So, to better answer questions at a faster pace and eliminate repetition, I decided to compile a few similar questions and answer them all at once, and put them up on my blog! Hopefully it will also serve as a useful reference to anyone else having similar questions too!
Today's questions deal with undertones and skincare, specifically eye creams for undereye puffiness. All questions are printed "as is" in order to remain faithful to the original reader's words. I do basic editing for spelling and simple grammar where possible, however. So, without further ado, let's start!
Vicki asks:
Hi, can you help me decide my undertone? I'm still not too sure of it myself. How do I send you a picture?
Jessica asks:
Hi, sorry to bother. I love your post on skin tones. Would like to request help with skin tone. Am so confused. I am in HK too. Hope to hear from you.
A long time ago in 2010, I wrote a post dealing with undertones for Asians and olive skintones, after a frustrating journey trying to figure out my own undertones. Obviously, undertones - which can be complex, and go beyond the binaries of "warm" or cool" - are still tricky for some people, so this is by far one of the most common requests I get.
I'm always more than happy to help people identify and figure out their undertones, because I really sympathize with everyone who went through the same struggle that I did! It took me literally years to figure out my own undertone, which is why I wrote the post in the first place. When I think back to all the time and money I wasted trying to experiment with colours that didn't work on me in an effort to identify my own undertones, I feel like it was such an arduous journey, and so I'm always happy to help anyone figure out their undertones and what colours look good on them! The only thing is, photos and large attachments clog up my email inbox really fast, especially when I get multiple requests with multiple photos attached! So, the fastest (and most efficient) way I've found to help with undertones, is for any requestors to friend me on Facebook first (don't worry I don't spam or collect personal info), and then send me a message on Facebook, asking me your undertones-related questions. A bonus is that people often already have multiple photos of themselves uploaded on Facebook, and it's easier for me to figure out someone's undertones the more photos there are of the person. (Of course, you can just also send me your photos via Facebook.)
If you don't like Facebook, other social media is good too - Snapchat is fine (I'm musicalhouses there too), as is Instagram. Some people do that with Instagram too, if their Instagram is public - they just message me on Instagram, and I look through their IG photos and help them figure out their undertones. It saves them the trouble of emailing me photos of themselves.
If you really want to email me, of course you can! But in general I do respond faster on social media, just because it doesn't get as clogged up the way email does. So the response time can be a bit slower with email. But slow or not, I always, always, always do my best to get back to each and every reader - it's the least I can do, and I'm happy to do it!
Dorothy asks:
I have been looking for a good eye cream serum that works for puffy eyes (major concern) then dark circles and of course line/wrinkles. Have tried lots of products looks work. Any suggestions?
Ivy asks:
I read your blog and like your chemical analysis on skincare products. What is your recommendation for eye cream or gel that will reduce puffiness and has lifting effect? My eyelid is droopy and wonder if you have any eye products to recommend too.
I grouped these two questions together because they're quite similar, with the main concerns being undereye puffiness. That said, puffiness is tricky to make eye cream recommendations for. This is because there are various causes of under eye puffiness, among them blood pooling under the eyes, inflammation and allergies, water retention, fat deposits, tiredness, and just plain old heredity and aging. So different causes require different approaches, and not all of these causes are curable with the use of an eye cream. For example, if your puffiness is hereditary, then it is unlikely that any eye cream will help it very much. On the other hand, if your puffiness is just temporary swelling, then even simple home remedies like applying tea bags or a cold compress to the eyes might help, and you might not even need an eye cream. So it really depends on what the underlying issue is.
Most eye creams targeted to help puffiness often contain things like caffeine or peptides, which can also reduce puffiness. Some eye creams also may not target the puffiness directly, but may have anti-inflammatory ingredients, e.g. oat extracts. So an eye cream with a combination of these ingredients might be helpful, and these could serve as guiding principles when you look out for your next eye cream. But, it would be hard for me to specifically recommend a particular eye cream without knowing more about what your causes of puffiness are. That said, I do have a number of eye cream reviews accumulated over my years of blogging, and that could be a good place to start!
Have any more questions that you'd like answered in this section? Feel free to comment below, or contact me otherwise!
Thank you so much for your post of how to tell Asian undertones, it really helped a lot!
ReplyDeleteI consider myself as neutral-cool and has olive undertone. (though I'm not sure, planning to take more photos to analyze)
But following question is what colors suit me best.
A make-up artist said she's cool and has olive undertone, if she dyes her hair warm orange, it would emphasize the olive tone, when cool based olive brown hair would melt into olive tone and purplish red hair can somehow make skin more copper.
It's a good concept to learn further.
I look fresh in cool orange shades, and terrible in any purple shades.
But I'm wondering if it's hard for many Asians to wear purple shades perfectly due to yellow skintone. (I mean very pigmented purple)
I know it's not easy to conclude this in general, but it'll be really nice to have some color guide for reference to save some time from trying all shades.
It would be amazing that you write an article about this, if not too much trouble.
Thank you again!