Do you suffer from under eye bags or puffy eyes? The good news is you can treat the appearance of puffy eyes on any budget. Find out how, now!
Everybody experiences puffy eyes or discoloration around the eyes at some point in their lives. The good news is, there are a variety of ways to treat puffy eyes and soothe irritation around the eyes. Often puffy eyes are a symptom of tiredness and lack of sleep, or even aging. The area around the eyes is composed of very sensitive skin that is thinner than the rest of the skin on your face. This means that the area around your eyes is more prone to signs of aging or showing signs of fatigue.
Sun exposure, lack of sleep, poor diet, fluid retention, and genetics all interact to affect the appearance of the skin around your eyes. Knowing the cause of puffiness around the eyes helps determine the best treatment for you to pursue to treat signs of puffiness or aging around the eyes. Luckily, there are many things you can do to treat puffy eyes. Some of them you can do right at home. 
Home Treatments for Puffy Eyes
Puffy eyes are generally a sign of inflammation in the body. This can be due to lack of sleep, to alcohol consumption, to poor diet, or to allergies. The good news is, there is a way to combat puffy eyes from the comfort of your own home with tools you may already have at your disposal.
A quick at home treatment for puffy eyes is to leave two damp bags of green tea in the refrigerator overnight and apply to each of your eyes in the morning. Green tea has anti-inflammatory agents that will combat inflammation in your eye area while the cool temperature of the tea bags causes contraction of the inflamed vessels around the eyes. This method can also cure redness around the eyes and is great for your skin. A similar at-home treatment with anti-inflammatory agents is to apply two slices of cucumber to both eyes, like you may often see in spa commercials.
Another method is to put two spoons in the freezer overnight and apply to your eye area in the morning. The cold metal spoons will hold the cold temperature for a longer period of time, and work to reduce puffiness and inflammation in the eye area from an early morning. Another tool you can use to the same effect is a cool compress or a gel eye mask that you can leave in the refrigerator overnight.
If you have an aloe vera plant growing in or near your home, or if you have aloe vera gel in your refrigerator, this is another great at-home method for combating eye puffiness. Aloe vera is a soothing gelatinous plant that contains anti-inflammatory properties and can work to combat signs of aging and puffiness around the eyes if you are on a budget.
Topical Treatments for Eye Puffiness
If you are looking for a more intensive method to combat eye puffiness from lack of sleep or allergies, products with active ingredients such as caffeine can quickly fight signs of aging and puffiness around the eyes. Caffeine is a diuretic, meaning it flushes liquids and energizes the body as an active agent. If you are retaining fluid around your eyes and have inflammation, caffeine will energize the lymphatic flow around the eyes and decrease puffiness immediately. Some products you can try to decrease eye puffiness that contain caffeine but will not break your budget are The Ordinary caffeine eye serum, which you can buy for as little as $7.50, or Good Molecules caffeine hydrogel eye patches, which sell $18 for 30 pairs.
Another way to reduce puffiness before it begins and to prevent signs of aging around the eyes is to introduce an eye cream into your nightly skincare routine. Many of these eye creams will contain antioxidant formulas that help prevent aging, inflammation, and puffiness in the morning. CeraVe has a wonderful and affordable eye cream costing only $18, that focuses on restoring your skin’s barrier with ceramides and hydrating to prevent inflammation. Public Goods offers an eye cream that sells for $16 which contains caffeine and peptides to brighten the skin around the eyes, reduce puffiness, and hyaluronic acid to moisturize the eye area. The Inkey List offers an eye cream for only $12 that focuses on repairing the skin around the eyes to reduce dryness, signs of aging, dark circles, and puffiness overnight with the ingredient niacinamide.
Cosmetic Procedures to Treat Eye Puffiness
If you are looking to take a more permanent approach to reducing puffiness and under-eye bags, there are a few cosmetic procedures you can explore to improve the appearance of the skin around your eyes. Non-Ablative laser treatments help promote collagen production in the localized area and reduce signs of aging and puffiness. You can go for one or more treatment sessions, depending on how severe your problem is and how many sessions your surgeon recommends. This type of treatment starts at about $1500 per-session.
An alternative to laser treatments, which may be a bit more affordable, is localized Botox treatments. Botox will not treat the eye bags or puffiness but does reduce the appearance of eye bags and the signs of wrinkles. If choosing Botox you will need to schedule appointments every three to six months to maintain the appearance of your surrounding eye area. Botox treatments tend to cost about $500 per session. Juvederm filler treatments are another option to reduce the appearance of puffy eyes and eye bags. Fillers can last anywhere from a year to three months so you can schedule appointments accordingly. Each session for filler treatment will cost about $700.
If you want a permanent fix to under eye bags and puffiness you can opt for a surgical procedure called lower blepharoplasty. This is a procedure where the fat or skin under the eye causing the appearance of bags and puffiness is either removed or repositioned to fix the cosmetic appearance of the skin around your eyes. The average cost of this procedure runs at about $4,100.