Well, it’s the second month in the start of a new year and I’m already at my wits end. I’ve taken on some new web design clients (who couldn’t be better and more facilitating) which are big projects; have been up and down to London like a yo-yo and then on an almost week-long press trip to Germany.

Needless to say, I’m bloody exhausted.

So getting hold of Creme de La Mer’s new Illuminating Eye Gel was like a little hug and helping hand from the big guy (or girl or talking rubber duck et al) upstairs. A little pat on the back and a “here you go, mate”.

The Illuminating Eye Gel is filled with the timeless and highly active and stimulating Creme de La Mer ingredients including The Miracle Broth; the new Awakening Ferment and the Illuminating Ferment.

The Miracle Broth

The power behind the brand and without this, you might as well just be using a bit of old Nivea. The Miracle Broth isn’t just branding, marketing or what-have-you; it’s a rare and costly to extract bio-active ingredient that was discovered by Dr. Max Huber, the brand’s founder.

The Miracle Broth, in it’s most purely available form within The Concentrate, is used by surgery and cancer patients to relieve scarring and dramatically aid in the healing process.

To cut a long story short, The Miracle Broth defibrillates the basal cell layers from the surface into producing more cells more quickly – boosting the reparation process. By then blending in other ferments for example, it can then be used to repair and calm; repair and brighten or repair and lift etc.

The Awakening Ferment

This is more of a protective ferment rather than corrective. It’s loaded with antioxidants from mineralised sea algae that help limit oxidative damage (one of the main drivers of lines and wrinkles).

Antioxidants are hugely important in skin care and you should ideally look to have them in your diet too with super-foods such as blueberries; dark green vegetables such as kelp; avocados (*shudder* the texture really makes me cringe); green tea and salmon.

Attack is the best form of defence, but where antioxidants are concerned, defence is the best form of attack – stick that on a T-Shirt.

The Illuminating Ferment

Cloaked as a sea-source brightening blend, The Illuminating Ferment not only brightens and gives the appearance of a lifted eye area, but it reduces the puffiness as well as delivering anti-irritants to calm, sooth and soften the skin.

It really does give the Illuminating Eye Gel that “ahhhhh” moment (a soothing noise rather than an erratic scream).

Other notable ingredients

Dimethicone

The base is dimethicone, a silicone that has two properties. Firstly, don’t be scarred of silicones in cosmetics; they don’t congest the skin on their own and the majority evaporate relatively quickly once applied.

Silicones are used to both deliver hydrating ingredients deeper into the skin (that’s really noticeable in the Illuminating Eye Gel) as well as smoothing the appearance lines and wrinkles and acting as a great base for makeup – I’m a huge fan of YSL Touche Eclat and it sits like a dream on top of this.

Niacin

Niacin or Niacinamide is Vitamin B3 and one of my absolute favourite ingredients due to its amazing effects on both skin ageing and acne. It’s excellent at helping cells to retain moisture and also slows down their natural destruction. It’s also rumoured that ingesting niacin through diet can increase sexual prowess – meeoow.

Essential Oils

There’s an enormous blend of essential oils designed to sooth, repair and/or act as powerful anti-inflammatories such as Eucalyptus, Barley, Wheat (super-good at reducing the appearance of wrinkles), St. Paul’s Wort, Green Tea (as mentioned above), Birch, Lady’s Thistle (*snigger*), Chlorella, cucumber, apple (an exceptional brightening active), jojoba and chamomile – a wildly powerful anti-inflammatory.

Results

I’m using The Illuminating Eye Gel throughout the day for it’s amazing visible effects and day long protection and repair boosters.

However I’m still using me Creme de La Mer Eye Concentrate at night to deliver a great big whacking dose of the Miracle Broth to my eyes and because I don’t need illumination properties whilst I’m asleep.

This ensures they stay as puffiness-free as possible and calms down my obscenely reactive eyes. I think that’s worth pointing out actually, my eyes are absolutely traumatised by reactions from the wrong eye product.

I get the reactiveness from my mum and I’ve said year after year that so far Creme de La Mer eye products are the only powerful and effective treatments for my tired eyes that sooth them and cause not a single reaction. I can use other creams but those are usually just greasy balms that do very little else – The Illuminating Eye Gel is completely non-greasy by the way! Super silky smooth and softening.

Creme de La Mer The Illuminating Eye Gel is a miracle simply put, and to conclude, when you apply it you’ll see and feel three things and these are the only things I care about when it comes to me eyes:

1. Immediate calming hydration
2. Brightening and radiance around the whole eye area
3. Bags visibly reduce before your eyes. Seriously. It’s like magic.

The 15ml pump, that should last you an age as you need around a third of a pump for both eyes (rather than each) is available for £100 here from John Lewis with free delivery.