My battle with dark circles began right when I hit puberty – and it wasn’t even my fault! Usually people get dark circles because they don’t sleep well or spend too much time staring at their TV or laptop screens; for me, however, it was a genetic problem. Literally everyone in my family has light or dark circles under their eye depending on their skin tone, so why would I be spared? For the longest time I hated my dark circles (I still kind of do) – but there comes a time in every girl’s life when little flaws like these become her defining feature. Especially when you are in high school and no other friend of yours has these dark bags under her eyes. So, yeah, there was a time in my life when I truly tried every eye cream, gel or dark circles treatment that my parents could afford in order to get rid of them. Nothing quite worked. Also read: #BeautyDiaries: I Conditioned My Hair Using… A Banana! After a while, I stopped caring too much. Until one day when I read about this coffee under eye mask – it was a home remedy. I had never really tried home remedies for dark circles, so I thought, why not? The recipe that I went with included 1 tbsp of coffee powder and coconut oil and half a tbsp of black pepper (because it is supposed to help with blood circulation) and water. You have to mix it all together until it resembles a paste. I kept it on for fifteen minutes before I went for a bath and then rinsed it with lukewarm water. One precaution I’d suggest to everyone who wants to try this recipe out: be very careful when applying it so it remains under your eye, and does not in anyway creep into your eyes because you are using pepper in it! Also read: #BeautyDiaries: I Tried An Activated Charcoal Face Pack And… The first day I applied it, I saw very visible change. No, my dark circles hadn’t reduced miraculously, but my undereye area definitely looked brighter and cleaner. Happy with the results, I decided to use this frequently in order to truly get rid of my circles. However, other than the first day, all other days when I applied this mix, my eyes looked the same! The effect was stagnant – it stayed what it was on the first day. The undereye area looked brighter for sure, but that was that. I still kept using it, though, hoping that I might be able to see some change if I just gave it more time. After two weeks of religiously using it, I gave up. It was one of the most heartbreaking moments for me because not only were my under eye dark circles not going to budge, but also for the first time in my life a home remedy had actually failed me. Since then I haven’t tried any new dark circles treatment techniques and I might just think twice before using any other home remedy! *Sigh*
