The cheat's way to get rid of tired looking eyes in the morning..

Many a morning I wake up, look at myself in the mirror and wonder why I didn't go to bed earlier the night before.  Then I get distracted by what to wear and what the weather looks like outside and of course, the typical English dilemma of whether I should or shouldn't take a coat with me.

When I'm truly tired, I get puffy eyes that don't really look too sexy.  Until recently, I didn't really know how to get rid of them and to make myself look half awake.  I'd pile my makeup on and just get to work but you could see the underlying tiredness from a mile off.

I recently lost a lipstick and whilst searching for that, I came across a product that I haven't used since I got it as a freebie in Glamour magazine. And if you think it's a Benefit product, you'd be right.  Now I have never been Benefit's biggest fan and even now, I'm still not a fangirl.  I like some of their stuff but wouldn't go as far to call them must haves.  This might the closest I ever get to calling a Benefit product a must have.  Click here to see what else of Benefit's I have reviewed.

Anyway, the product I found was Benefit's eyebright.  I have used this a few times in the past as an inner corner highlighter but the colour was just far too stark against my skintone.  If you're white or Chinese, you can easily get away with using this as an inner corner highlighter but for us Indian, black and olive skinned gals, it's a no go.

I decided to try it on my waterline to see what it did and to my surprise, it managed to look quite natural.  I think Benefit are missing a trick not marketing it that way, I've read on their website and they say that you should apply it to the inner and outer corner of your eyes and blend.  Well, I say do that if you're not of a darker skin colour.  If you are of a darker skin colour then whack it on your waterline.

I team this product up with my trusty eyelash curlers (reviewed here and going strong on their second pad replacement), any mascara that is close to hand (I've been using the Prestige one as my other bottle finished and this is the last one I have left..and seeing as Boots have discontinued it, I won't be able to buy more, despite it being a fantastic thing and one of the first products I ever reviewed on this blog).  I also use this Natralift Firming Eye Roll On from The Body Shop which I feel makes a difference..and the ball is very cooling on the skin.

If you've got more time then you could always put a decent inner corner highlighter on too, but as I am yet to find this, I have a bare inner corner.  The other thing that I tend to do once at work is line my upper lashline with some black eyeliner.  No flick though, I'm at work, not out knocking back the finest cocktails known to man.

And here's how it looks in its most basic way..

I'm not apologising for my eyebrows, I'm growing them out after someone f**ked them right up...

Now you might remember me hyping up Stila's Kajal pencil which is still all well and good but in the Summer months, it tends to be a bit too soft.  Fantastic for Winter though!

Talking of cocktails, I must warn you that if you like a decent citrus-y mojito, don't go to the Smollensky's in Canary Wharf as the people working there can never ever get this right.  Every time I go and ask for more citurs than mint, I end up drinking liquid toothpaste.  It's horrible and I have now given up asking for mojitos and I just stick to a bog standard glass of Chardonnay.