It has been a few weeks since I did a natural beauty hack, so I thought it was time to test another easy, natural hack that benefits your body in some way. So far I have tested olive oil, milk and lemon juice, and this week, I am trying green tea bags!
According to Top 10 Home Remedies, green tea bags have several beauty benefits, including fighting skin aging, treating acne and giving shine to your hair. The benefit I was most interested in, however, was reducing dark circles and puffiness under the eyes.
In the past few years, I have noticed that I have begun to develop dark circles under my eyes. I believe they can be blamed on a lack of sleep over the years, but they never seem to go away, and they have become a big insecurity of mine. So when I read on College Fashion that green tea bags are great for reducing dark circles and puffiness under the eyes because the caffeine in the tea shrinks the blood vessels around the eyes, I was ecstatic! Better yet, the writer of the College Fashion article said it is better to only use this treatment about once a week, so it wouldn’t be as much of a hassle to do as some of the other natural beauty treatments were.
I decided to try this natural beauty hack for the first time right before I went to bed. I followed the instructions provided by College Fashion, which included soaking two tea bags in hot water, squeezing the excess liquid out of the bags, putting them in the refrigerator to cool off, and then resting them on my eyes for 15 to 30 minutes. I chose to leave the bags on for 20 minutes. I lay down on my bed, set the timer on my phone, and then place them on my closed eyes. It was very relaxing—having those cooled tea bags on my eyes—and I ended up falling asleep until the timer went off. Once I took the bags off, I did not see a difference in the dark circles under my eyes.
Luckily, when I woke up the next day, I did see a bit of a difference. Not a big difference, but the dark circles under my eyes seemed to be a little lighter. However, I thought that might be because I had gotten a good night’s sleep, so I decided to try the procedure again.
The next night, I did the procedure again the exact same way, except I left the tea bags on my eyes for 30 minutes, as opposed to just 20. The next day, I saw absolutely no difference, but I think this had to do with the fact that I had a terrible night’s sleep. So I decided to try one more time the next night. This last time would be very important, as I did not have a good night’s sleep the previous night, and my eyes did look terrible the next morning as a result. So this was the perfect opportunity to see if the tea bags actually do work!
So, I tried the experiment again the next night, and left the tea bags on for about 30 minutes. Once I took them off, the good news was that my eyes were not as puffy; my eyes can seem a bit puffy—as if I have been crying—after a lack of sleep. Though the puffiness was gone, the dark circles were not. However, I was not surprised because I expected it to take multiple treatments to fully erase the dark circles.
What I learned overall is that trying the green tea bags on my eyes was worth it. It is cheap, easy-to-do and best of all, relaxing. It is not one of those treatments that causes unnecessary stress or is a pain to do. Anyone can do it if they have green tea bags. I would recommend this natural beauty hack to Her Campus readers. It may take a while to see results, but on the plus side, this treatment is a great way to take a 30-minute nap!
Photo Credit:
Ellen Bazley