I am 37 years old and my eye area is, by far, my biggest trouble area. My lower eye area has fine lines, crepiness, wrinkles, and crow’s feet. The skin around my eye area is thin and has a good deal of translucency. My tear trough area is also deep set. Thus, fighting dark circles around my eye area is another major battle of mine. I used ExPürtise Effective Anti-Aging Eye Serum ($65 in the shop) twice a day for 30 days.

In the past few years, I have used a few different eye creams — Amarte Eyeconic Eye Cream, Your Best Face Correct, Osmotics Blue Copper 5 Prime Eye, and E’shee Alpha & Omega Gene Therapy Eye Cream. I have noticed benefits from each of them, but had been almost exclusively using the E’shee eye cream for about nine months prior to my trial of the ExPürtise Effective Anti-Aging Eye Serum.

After using ExPürtise Effective Anti-Aging Eye Serum, my overall experience has been positive. On the first day of my trial, I noticed that my corrector and concealer weren’t creasing as much as usual before being smoothed out and set with powder. I actually liked this serum better as a base than E’shee. However, during my trial, there were times that I dispensed too much cream and I had issues with pilling. You really only need half a pump or less for both eyes (and I have pretty large eye areas).

The cream is housed in a pump bottle that is, thankfully, fairly easy to control the amount of product dispensed. Although ExPürtise calls this a serum, it is actually has the consistency of an eye cream. The ExPürtise serum is a little thicker and more moisturizing than the E’shee eye cream. You can watch Marta's video with tips on dispensing and using ExPürtise eye serum here.

ExPürtise notes that the key ingredients in its eye serum are hyaluronic acid, copper peptide, bearberry extract, and licorice root. ExPürtise uses sodium hyaluronate spheres to deliver the hyaluronic acid. This encapsulated form of hyaluronic acid is said to be able to penetrate deeper than other forms of hyaluronic acid. Copper peptide is included in the form of Matrixyl 3000, designed to stimulate collagen synthesis. In addition to Matrixyl 3000, this serum includes other collagen-boosting peptides, such as Palmitoyl Tripeptide-5 and Matrixyl Synthe'6.

Bearberry extract is an antioxidant and skin lightening agent while licorice root provides anti-inflammatory, skin lightening, and antioxidant benefits. Vitamin K and chrysin also provide skin lightening benefits. The cream also includes several other antioxidant ingredients such as conenzyme Q-10 (ubiquinone) and certified organic extracts (many of which serve other functions as well, such as providing moisture, skin lightening, and skin firming). ExPürtise Effective Anti-Aging Eye Serum does not include any parabens, sodium lauryl sulfate, ethanolamines, nano particles, synthetic colors or fragrances.

I was nervous about not using my E’shee eye cream for 30 days. However, the ExPürtise not only did a good job of maintaining the successes I’ve had with previous eye creams, but also actually improved some areas in which I hadn’t noticed any improvement for a while. I experienced a reduction in some of my fine lines. I also noticed some smoothing of the crepey part of my inner lower eyes and that they were less prone to scrunching.

As for lightening my dark circles, I can say that my area seems a tad bit lighter. Honestly, though, I am so pale and my skin is so thin and translucent, that I don’t think there is any eye cream out there that can really correct for the basis of my dark circles.

I have been impressed with the efficacy of the much cheaper ExPürtise. I won’t be abandoning my E’shee, though, because I feel like it does a little better job at building density. Going forward, I am planning on using the E’shee at night and using the ExPürtise during the day. The ExPürtise provided a smoother base under makeup (as long as I didn’t overapply and get pilling), a little bit more moisture, and has a lot of antioxidant ingredients which are absent from the E’shee.