Avon Lighten Up Under Eye Treatment Verses Avon Anew Ultimate Transforming Eye Cream

Avon makes several products geared towards lightening under eye circles. I have been plagued with dark circles my whole life. My contrasting pale skin did not help. While my parents were strict about wearing makeup until high school, I was always allowed to wear under eye concealer, which did not help much. But one morning I recall being on the school bus and forgetting to wear it, and that day the teacher marched me down to the school nurse insisting I must be sick. I was not. With this background, you likely know I have tried every lightening cream out there, the Vitamin K, the concealers and odd colored powders in blue and green and yellow that were supposed to counteract my circle color but did not. So with this background, I bring you my assessment of these two under eye circle creams.

I was never much of an Avon fan until trying their Anew Clinical 2 step face peel. I do think these two products are worthwhile and far more effective than their more expensive counterparts, including even Crème De La Mer, which I do love.

I tried the Avon Lighten Up Undereye Treatment cream first. I was not expecting much, I do not know why I even gave it a shot after my long history of no treatment working for me. But I was very pleased with the Avon Lighten Up. It did not sting, burn or peel my under eye area, it is smooth enough to apply makeup over and I did not wake up with puffy eyes if I applied it before bedtime. It is 15 ml (1/2 ounce) which does last awhile. You apply it twice a day once in the morning and once at night. Smooth it on gently in an INWARD motion towards your inner eye. I have found it safe to use on my upper eye but I stay away from the upper lash line. I had not mentioned to anyone that I was trying a new product but thought to myself that my circles were lighter but no one commented. I had used it for about 2 weeks. Then we had a death in the family and I cried for days on end, and crying always makes me look much worse around the eye, and I also stopped using the Lighten Up for a few days in this time. My Mother said to me, without knowing that I was trying any product: "Did you do something to your under eye circles?" I asked her what she meant. She said they looked much lighter and smaller. I told her about the Lighten Up. She looked at me closely, and said it was much lighter, and my eye looked much better.

A few others commented to me that I looked good for someone who had been crying. Grandma, from whom I inherited these circles, came over and wanted to know what I was using and asked me to fork it over. Within two weeks, Grandma looked dramatically younger. In addition to her dark circles, she is on a medication that causes darkening under the eye. The Avon Lighten Up actually keeps ahead of the darkening the medication causes so she looks better than her circle has in years and it really counteracts the darkening. She was previously using Peter Thomas Roth Vitamin K cream which was soothing and made her under eye area smoother but did not really address the dark circle itself. She is thrilled with saving money and having a better than ever under eye. I also found that my eye looked younger in that I could sort of contour around my eye, extending the Lighten Up a bit onto the upper eye area beyond the lid where you might normally apply highlighter or concealer to draw the eye upwards. Lighten Up retails for $15 at Avon, but they have frequent sales that make it even cheaper. Since the Peter Thomas Roth product was over $45, this is a steal in my opinion. A dermatologist told me only plastic surgery laser treatments could lighten my dark circles, so I am very pleased. If you know a child with dark circles or a man with dark circles, this cream is not detectible and can address the dark circle. I believe it needs to be used continually, but I have had results even when I don't use it for awhile. I have also found it helpful in lightening a few very light blotch spots on my skin.

Now realizing some product could actually address my crazy dark circles, I studied the Avon website to see if I could look even better and found the Anew Alternative Intensive Eye Cream and wanted to give it a try. Avon describes this product as "Reclaim brighter, younger-looking skin around eyes. The brightest innovation in herbaceutical skin care. Anti-aging science and Eastern healing herbs unite to attack the major signs of dark circles and treat the age-related conditions that can make them look worse." Attacking dark circles sounded good, and it said it would work in seven days so that seemed pretty harmless. I got some and gave some to my Grandma and sister (who is not dark under the eye but would like to look brighter) as well. It is $25 for the same amount of cream as the Lighten Up: ½ ounce.

While upon application the eye area did look dewy, and I did find an overall improvement in the skin around the eye, I did not find that it lightened my circles and did not think I looked different at the seven day benchmark. It does look good when it is applied and could be worn outside the house and does seem to reflect light. My sister without the dark circles seemed to like this more than Granny and I did, so I think it is geared toward someone needing to remove a fragile thin skin look around the eye or an overall eye cream, not one targeted to dark circles. I was impressed with how young the skin looked, but it was too dark for me. I would recommend it if you do not have a specific under eye compliant like dark circles but do want a good eye cream. I found it had a little bit of a sting upon application. I will allow for that I may have obtained all the lightening I could get from the Lighten Up first and that this product simply could not get my undereye any lighter, so perhaps this could have also addressed the original dark circle as well. But at this juncture, I was looking more for brightening than to get lighter, and that did not happen for me.

In conclusion, if you are desperate to get rid of dark circles at any age, I would recommend the Avon Lighten Up can get rid of super dark circles better than any other lighter I have tried. The Anew Alternative Intensive Eye Cream makes for smoother under eye skin but if you need a lightener The Alternative is not much of a lightener in my opinion. I did get light enough upon regular use of the Lighten Up to not need to use concealer on a daily basis.