I'm gonna be real with you: a morning person I am not. When my alarm goes off in the morning, the first words in my head most days are "Are you f*%&ing kidding me?!" (My poor iPhone. It doesn't mean any harm.) Try as I might, it's inevitable that if I'm waking up because a device is making noise at me, you best believe that I am going to be grumpy as hell — and don't even get me started on what my face looks like when I first stumble out of bed.
There are exactly two things that take me from angry zombie to pleasant working girl in those early hours, and they are as follows: coffee (French press, almond milk, strong as rocket fuel), and makeup application (hey, this is my life's work for a reason). Before I can swig my freshly-brewed caffeine and gleefully apply my spackle, however, I take one important extra step: applying this eye cream to my zonked-out, puffy, irritated eyes.
Yes, this eye cream is for men (I may or may not have stolen it from my husband's side of the medicine cabinet), but let me tell you that this lady loves her Eye Alert. Since it's more of a gel than a cream, it sinks in instantly, cools with cucumber, and de-puffs with (more!) caffeine. A tiny bit of this stuff followed by a touch of my favorite brightening concealer (L'Oreal's Magic Lumi, always and forever) means that I can walk into my office without looking like an extra from The Walking Dead. Which, you know, is always a plus in my book.
Kiehl's Eye Alert Cream, $21.50, available at Kiehl's.