Do you have puffy eyes or un­der-eye cir­cles? Whether the cause is a few long days or too many rest­less nights, you've prob­a­bly dealt with both at one time or an­oth­er. If your so­lu­tion is to splash a lit­tle cold wa­ter on your face or grab a con­ceal­er, stop right there. There's more that you can do to un­pack those un­der-eye bags and pre­vent eye puffi­ness. These sim­ple tips can get you start­ed.

What Caus­es

Dark Un­der-Eye Cir­cles

Dark cir­cles (or what we call bags un­der the eyes), have many caus­es.

These in­clude:

a. In­creased melanin (al­so called hy­per­pig­men­ta­tion)

b. Fat loss be­neath the eye

c. Bro­ken blood ves­sels

Al­so, "hard liv­ing" - too much caf­feine and to­bac­co and too lit­tle sleep- is a less com­mon cause of eye puffi­ness and bags.

6 So­lu­tions forUn­der-Eye Cir­cles and Bags

Try these tips for bright­en­ing un­der your eyes:

1. Get enough sleep. Sleep­ing sound­ly is an in­ex­pen­sive, easy way to help min­imise dark un­der-eye cir­cles, no mat­ter what the cause. Sleep not on­ly helps keep eyes bright, but it al­so aids your body in re­pair­ing cell dam­age to your skin.

2. Avoid ex­ces­sive al­co­hol and caf­feine. Though they may perk you up in the short term, caf­feine and al­co­hol don't do the same for your skin. They can cause mild de­hy­dra­tion, mak­ing dark cir­cles more ob­vi­ous.

3. Con­sid­er skin light­en­ers or bleach­ing agents; ask your Aes­theti­cian for ad­vice or re­fer­ral to a Der­ma­tol­o­gist. If the dark cir­cles un­der your eyes are due to too much melanin, creams con­tain­ing light­en­ing agents such as retinol, hy­dro­quinone, ko­jic acid, green tea, vi­t­a­min C, or soy can be help­ful. To help skin-light­en­ing prod­ucts work their best, avoid the sun and use sun­screen dai­ly. (I sug­gest a sun­screen with zinc and a sun-pro­tec­tion fac­tor (SPF) of 30.)

4. Check out in­jectable fillers. A der­ma­tol­o­gist may ad­min­is­ter these if your dark eye cir­cles are due bro­ken blood ves­sels. Fillers can al­so help if fat loss is the cause of bags un­der the eyes.

5. Vi­t­a­min K treat­ments may help re­duce the look of dark cir­cles due to bro­ken blood ves­sels. Skin care prod­ucts con­tain­ing vi­t­a­min K can al­so help.

6. Go a shade lighter in your con­ceal­er. A con­ceal­er one shade lighter than your skin tone can help dis­guise un­der-eye cir­cles. A con­ceal­er with an SPF of 15 or high­er pro­vides dou­ble ben­e­fits. If your skin tends to be oily or ac­ne-prone, use an oil-free con­ceal­er..

6 Strate­gies to pre­vent eye puffi­ness

Lots of things can lead to puffy eyes -- from too much to too lit­tle sleep, from eat­ing poor­ly to get­ting old­er. To help re­duce the look of eye puffi­ness, the pros of­fer these sug­ges­tions:

1. Sleep. It's as im­por­tant to pre­vent­ing puffy eyes as it is to di­min­ish­ing dark cir­cles. Start by get­ting at least eight hours of good sleep a night.

2. Drink wa­ter. Stay­ing well-hy­drat­ed can help pre­vent puffy eyes, says Chica­go der­ma­tol­o­gist Car­olyn Ja­cob, MD. Drink­ing plen­ty of healthy liq­uids, es­pe­cial­ly wa­ter, helps keep over­all skin tone firm and full look­ing.

3. Cut back on salt. Re­tain­ing body flu­id can cause puffy, doughy look­ing skin. Re­duc­ing salt in­take helps re­duce the ten­den­cy to re­tain ex­cess wa­ter. An easy way to cut back on salt? Re­duce the processed foods in your di­et.

4. Use cool com­press­es. Flori­da der­ma­tol­o­gist

An­drea Cam­bio, MD, ad­vo­cates the de-puff­ing pow­er of chilled, moist green tea bags.

Eliz­a­beth L. Tanzi, MD, a Wash­ing­ton, DC der­ma­tol­o­gist, sug­gests gen­tly plac­ing cool cu­cum­ber slices or a bag of frozen peas or car­rots on the eyes for 10 to 15 min­utes. A gel eye-mask will al­so do the trick.

5. Con­sid­er fillers. These can help if col­la­gen and elastin break down -- "caus­ing sur­round­ing skin to pooch out," in the words of der­ma­tol­o­gist Fredric Brandt, MD, in his book 10 Min­utes, 10 Years. Fillers can ac­tu­al­ly make puffi­ness look small­er.

6. Learn to ac­cept the look of your eyes. Some peo­ple are just more prone to puffy eyes or dark eye cir­cles, ac­cord­ing Brandt. As we grow old­er, skin nat­u­ral­ly weak­ens and be­comes less re­silient, so puffy eyes or dark cir­cles nat­u­ral­ly be­come more no­tice­able.

These tips may help you keep your eyes look­ing their best. But the most ef­fec­tive eye-bright­en­ing tip may al­so be the eas­i­est one to im­ple­ment: Smile!