The Girl's Guide
Issue 110: My Eye Bags Are Designer (feat. Carmen Schober)
Welcome back to The Girl’s Guide and happy (early) Mother’s Day! If you missed the most recent issue of The Girl’s Guide, find it here.
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My Eye Bags Are Designer
I love it when you guys send in your anonymous questions via the Ask Evie form — but sometimes I need a little help to answer them! To respond to today’s Ask Evie question, I turned to skincare expert Simone Sydel (many of you may recognize her from her Evie Magazine byline!). You can follow Simone on X and check out her website full of skincare tips here.
QUESTION: “Would love to hear readers' tips/suggested products to combat dark circles under the eyes! I'm 27 and it seems like once hormonal acne-related skin problems are finally completely gone... you start aging. I suppose life is unfair.” - Skin Concerned
SIMONE: “Dark circles under the eyes are a common skin concern experienced by men and women of all ages.
However, they tend to become more prominent as we age due to several factors, including dehydration, poor sleep quality and irregular sleep schedule, unhealthy lifestyle habits such as smoking and alcohol consumption, and accumulated inflammation due to poor diet.
All these factors, especially when done in excess or over a long period of time, contribute to cellular damage and buildup of toxins that cause the blood vessels under the skin to enlarge. Additionally, as collagen production also starts to take a hit and slows down due to years of accumulated cellular damage, the skin, including the under eye area starts to become thinner, causing the enlarged blood vessels from underneath to appear even more visible, and resulting in the formation of dark circles.
Therefore, due to dark circles being primarily caused by cellular damage, the best way to reduce their appearance is to start reversing the damage from the inside out. This can be done by improving your sleep schedule and making sure you get enough of high quality sleep, introducing more antioxidant foods into your daily menu to combat free radical damage, and cutting out unhealthy lifestyle habits while also replacing them with some healthier ones, such as more exercise, swapping out coffee for tea, reducing the consumption of sugary foods and replacing them with nuts and seeds packed with healthy omega-3s, etc.
Additionally, topical products, such as serums, which are highly concentrated and effective formulations with a light weight consistency to help the active ingredients penetrate into the skin, containing brightening agents such as vitamin C, niacinamide, caffeine, and vitamin E, as well as peptides for stimulating collagen production, hyaluronic acid for hydration, and mild retinoids to reverse cellular damage and boost the production of anti-inflammatory components, can be a fantastic addition to your daily skincare routine that will help brighten and plump up the under eye area for a youthful glow.
On the other hand, when choosing brightening or collagen-stimulating eye serums, make sure to avoid products containing alcohol and fragrance, as these can be drying to the under eye area and exacerbate the appearance of dark circles in many cases. Additionally, some of these components, particularly fragrances, can also be irritating to the skin, which can cause the already enlarged blood vessels to enlarge even more in an attempt to fight off potential allergic reactions, and making under eye circles appear even darker in the process.”
Here are some product recommendations from Girl’s Guide readers…
Have a specific question about dating, career, or friendship you want me to answer? Click here to submit your burning questions anonymously.
Interview with Carmen Schober
For this special pre-Mother’s Day edition, I am interviewing Carmen Schober, an inspiring mom, novelist, and writing coach! You can subscribe to Carmen's fun weekly newsletter at carmenschober.com, which includes everything from amazing new beauty products or home gadgets, brilliant essays about faith and culture, and helpful networking opportunities for writers. Follow Carmen on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X, and YouTube. She also just launched a new Substack,
, for those who want a weekly shot of creative inspiration!
What does your life look like right now?
I'm the News and Culture Writer for Evie Magazine, I founded Staseos, and I also help aspiring writers at The Writer's Map! As a mom of three little cuties, my hobbies are limited at the moment, but I enjoy a little bit of boxing every day, being outside when the sun is shining, traveling with my husband (we love Oregon and Florida) and sneaking off to the sauna when I can.
What books are in your to-be-read pile?
I just finished reading The Unfair Sex by Nina Farewell. It's so not politically correct, which is refreshing but also sometimes a little offensive, but it's sprinkled with some really helpful insights into how male and female minds differ when it comes to sex. I also just started Bruce Gore's Historical and Chronological Context of the Bible and it's the most engaging "textbook" style book I've ever read. My Staseos co-editor,
, has a narrative history podcast about the Bible, and Gore is one of his favorite sources.
What's your advice to someone who wants to try writing fiction but doesn't know where to start?
I would recommend either watching your favorite movie or reading your favorite book and then making a bullet-point list of what happens. Character A gets broken up with, Character B tries to convince her to do X, etc. Just a really simple summary of all the actions they take. That will give you a sense of how a story is formed. Then just start writing. Fiction always requires a lot of experimentation. For my books, I did this exact same process with Rocky and Sweet Home Alabama!
What helpful writing habits or routines have you developed over the years?
Most of my habits are usually formed around my children. When I wrote my first book, After She Falls, we only had our oldest daughter, so my routine was pretty relaxed. When I wrote my second, Pretty Little Pieces, I had an additional toddler and a newborn! That was ridiculously hard, but my husband and I agreed I would power through the process for about six months. Personally, I think if you can commit to being disciplined about writing for a year (like 1000 words a day, whether it's on a book or blogging, or anything really) you'll set yourself up for some very cool things, and then you can start to ease up a bit and be more relaxed with it.
What's your favorite or most useful clothing purchase in the last year?
I recently bought some Good American jeans from Poshmark (my first purchase from them, I've always been intimidated by it for some reason), and I saved like $60! I'm not a fan of the Kardashians at all (Khloe is the face of Good American), BUT I have to say no other jeans fit like they do and still manage to be comfortable. I was also really pleasantly surprised to learn their jeans are made in the USA, and I love that.
Your Most Embarrassing Intern Stories
Per Girl’s Guide tradition, I always include an intern-themed issue at the beginning of every summer. This year, I am asking you readers for YOUR most embarrassing stories from your intern days. You can share your story via this Google form (anonymity allowed). I can’t wait to read what you have to say!
The Haps
The First-Ever Guide To All 131 DC Neighborhoods
This newsletter started off as “The Girly Girl’s Guide to DC,” so it’s only fitting that I include a DC-specific resource for all the incoming interns and staffers moving here this summer! Writer Austin Graff shares an ever-evolving guide to every neighborhood in DC here. Graff says the guide will “remain free to help everyone further explore and experience” the city. This is a great resource with categories like Eat, Drink, Do, and See. I’m realizing I missed a lot of cool landmarks in the neighborhoods where I spent the most time, so definitely check it out!
Here are more links you’ll want to check out:
3 Things That Helped Me Grieve The Death Of My Best Friend: Virginia Allen writes in Evie Magazine about learning to both grieve and celebrate the life of a friend gone too soon.
Kids Are Giving Up on Elite Colleges—and Heading South: I’m always amazed by non-Southerners’ misguided expectations of Southerners. Check out this story from
.The UK Is Not O.K. (Moment of Truth): After returning from his first-ever trip to the United Kingdom, my husband Nick Solheim interviews British commentator
about the state of the nation.