If you wear glasses, your under-eyes need a different routine

Shadow is not pigment

The persistent claim that glasses cause dark circles doesn't hold up. What frames do is cast a shadow across the orbital area and, with tinted or thick lenses, dim the light reaching the skin under them. The result reads darker in a mirror without anything having changed in the skin itself.

Actual under-eye darkness comes from the usual suspects: thin skin over visible vasculature, pigment, hollowing that catches shadow, and temporary fluid. Those are worth addressing. The frame shadow isn't a skin problem at all.

Frame contact points

What glasses genuinely do to skin happens at the contact points: nose pads, the bridge, and where heavier frames rest on the upper cheek. Over a long day that means pressure marks, occasional redness, and product being rubbed away exactly where you applied it.

• Clean your nose pads. They collect oil, makeup and skincare residue, and they sit on your face for twelve hours.
• Let skincare absorb before frames go on — wet product plus a nose pad equals a slipping, marked bridge.
• If pads leave deep marks daily, an optician adjustment is a skincare intervention in disguise.

A routine that fits around frames

1. Cleanse, then patches on dry skin — placed on the cheekbone, below where most frames sit.
2. Fifteen minutes with your glasses off. This is the part that doesn't work if you rush it.
3. Tap in the essence, moisturiser, SPF. Wait until the skin is dry to the touch.
4. Glasses on last, with clean pads.

One thing that changes everything

Check your under-eyes in the light you're actually seen in, without your glasses on, before you decide how dark they are. A lot of what glasses wearers read as circles turns out to be the frame doing it.