Review: Sulwhasoo Essential Rejuvenating Eye Cream

My 12th eye cream since starting this blog! Who knew finding an eye cream for my dark circles and under eye fine lines would be this hard. Good thing most Korean products have samples that I can buy so I can try so many without being broke.

If I were to summarize my eye creams until now, for my dark circles, Skinfood Salmon Brightening Eye Cream has been the most effective (doesn't remove it completely of course..for details you can read my review here). For fine lines, nothing has really helped consistently. The Face Shop Smim Fermentation Concentrate Eye Cream has been the most effective, but I have recently realized that the sample I've tried may have been just the normal face cream and not the eye cream (lost in translation).... I have since bought the full size of the eye cream which I will be trying next. That's when I started thinking maybe Skinfood's relatively inexpensive eye creams are not strong enough for my aging eyes (sad, I know) and that I needed to explore the higher-end brands like History of Whoo and this one, Sulwhasoo.

Description (from us.sulwhasoo.com):

• This age-defying eye cream revitalizes the delicate skin around the eyes, smoothing lines, wrinkles, dark circles, and puffiness with a potent blend of Korean medicinal herbs. 
• Hydrating and smoothing, this anti-aging treatment restores radiance and vitality to the eye area. 
• Green tea, pomegranate, and six-year-old Korean red ginseng fight free radical damage to prevent signs of age.
• Apply using a circular motion, patting lightly to promote absorption. Finish with a gentle eye massage.

My impression:

This eye cream is around 109USD for 25ml on Sulwhasoo's official US site, which is similar in price to the History of Whoo Qi & Jin Eye Cream. It's consistency is very watery so it's very easy to blend without damaging your under eye area. Initially it seems like the cream is just gliding onto the surface without getting seeped into my skin but I found out in the morning that it does absorb well. I have pretty dry under eyes and this cream alone is moisturizing enough for me despite its watery consistency.

[Update Jul 16 2013]: I realized I forgot to mention that this cream has that same distinct smell as Skinfood Black Raspberry Eye Cream, except not as strong. So it shares at least one same ingredient? But Skinfood did not do much for my wrinkles and dark circles when I tried it and I was soon put off by the smell and I stopped using it. Perhaps I should give it another try?

I am quite impressed with this eye cream. If we go by each item in its description, I did see that it smoothes the lines, wrinkles, helps with my dark circles and alleviates the puffiness slightly under my eyes. I didn't feel that the skin around my eyes were revitalized or had any restored radiance though. Regarding its effect on dark circles, I usually use Skinfood Salmon Brightening Eye Cream but I ran out for a few weeks and only used this one as my sole eye cream. I did not notice any darkening of my dark eye circles, so it has similar effectiveness of Skinfood Salmon Brightening Eye Cream.

AND it also helped with my fine lines. If The Face Shop Smim Fermentation Concentrate Eye Cream (or I guess what I really tried was the face cream) helped 95% and History of Whoo Qi & Jin Eye Cream helped 70%, I would say this one does 95% on my good eye, and 88% on my bad eye (my right eye has more and deeper lines under my eyes than the left eye).

Something interesting that I've found with this eye cream is that it makes my under eye area better with each week of application. With most of the eye creams that I've tried, if it's effective, it suddenly shows me its effectiveness on my eye and reaches its maximal effect within 1 week. But then it plateaus and I don't see anything more. With this eye cream, the changes have been very gradual but I feel that the fine lines under my eye have been getting better every week and are still getting better. So it's a bit slow, but I feel like it does MORE than the previous eye creams that I've tried.

Summary:

Decreased the appearance of fine lines (95% for my good eye and 88% for my bad eye)
Brightens my dark circles, depuffs slightly
Moisturizing enough to be used as a sole eye cream
$109 for 25ml on Sulwhasoo US site

Grade: 4.5/5 because it helps with my fine lines AND dark circles, but for my bad eye I can still see the fine lines after using this eye cream

Value: 4.5/5 because it's moisturizing enough by itself and does at least four things (moisturize, fine lines, dark circles, puffiness)

Repurchase? Yes, but the full size version is too expensive for me so I have already bought 60 samples on eBay ^^;;