Derms Warn Towards This Viral Eye Cream Hack

The most recent eye cream hack going viral on TikTok takes a completely new strategy to higher eyelid tightening, however it’s being met with criticism, and there’s additionally no proof that it’s secure for pores and skin. Philip Cowley, aka @philsmypharmacist who dubs himself a “pharmacist mixmaster extraordinaire” and has 1.4 million followers, took to the platform yesterday to share a hack that “fixes your eye cream in lower than a minute.”

The Hack

“Droopy eyelids are the worst,” he says within the video, which has almost 40,000 likes. “Afrin [nasal spray] has oxymetazoline in it, and oxymetazoline is similar energetic ingredient within the new drop [Upneeq] that goes within the eye. We’re going to make a cream that goes on the skin of the attention.” In his caption, he writes: “Take 15 ml of eye cream with retinol in it. (I really like this eye serum from Murad). Combine it with 7.5 ml of Afrin. Put it again within the bottle and apply at evening!”

Why It Doesn’t Work

New York dermatologist Shereene Idris, MD, who has a prescription for Upneeq eyedrops for her gentle ptosis, may be very aware of the ingredient and isn’t impressed with this concoction. “Don’t waste your cash on this hack,” she says in her response video. “Once you apply oxymetazoline topically, it does jack sh*t. Once you insert oxymetazoline into your eye by a watch drop—I’m not saying put Afrin in your eye—it really works otherwise as a result of it’s lipophilic; it’s a vasoconstrictor. You’ve mucus membranes on the entire interior lining of your eye they usually’re loaded with blood vessels, so it’s going to get absorbed and constrict the blood vessels. Within the course of, it constricts your muscle tissue, permitting them to raise.

Once you apply it topically, your muscle will not be going to contract—it simply doesn’t work that manner. Plus, the molecular weight of oxy is 260, which is sufficiently small to penetrate the pores and skin, however not sufficiently small to penetrate deep sufficient to hit the muscle. If it’s as if I mentioned I’m going to use Botox topically and I’m going to be frozen—it doesn’t work that manner. And to make issues worse, he wasted an $89 retinol eye cream as a result of he added the Afrin spray, which is likely to be destabilizing to the retinol. Plus, he put the retinol on his higher eyelids and his eyelids look purple and bloodshot towards the tip of the video.”