Artificial Tears

Which type of artificial tear is right for me?  Patients ask me this all the time.  The drug store shelves are confusing.  There are so many different kinds available.  There are six different types of artificial tears on the market today. And, you might want to choose the artificial tear based on your specific lifestyle requirements and the time of day you are using the tears.  

There has been a ton of research and development done in the eye care space in the last ten years.  Companies have been focusing on the ability to keep the feeling of moisture in your eye for longer periods.  The ingredients included in these products have shifted as well with the advancements in technology.

Don't forget to download the Ultimate Guide to Artificial Tears.  For now, let's review...

Best Eye Makeup Remover for Sensitive Eyes.

There are five types of eye makeup removers. You will want to choose one or more of them depending on your personal skin type and lifestyle.  Then, you just need to make sure there aren't any toxins in the ingredient list.  I review the reasons to wear CLEAN or toxin-free makeup in this blog. 

The 5 categories of eye makeup removers are: micellar water, oil-free, oil-based, clothes, and wipes. Some of these are best for heavy makeup wear and some are better for light wear.  Some of these are better for dry skin, oily skin, contact lens wear, and busy lifestyles.  Keep reading on to find out which would best suit your eyes.  And, don't hesitate to think that you may want to have multiple types around for different situations like special occasio...

Labels.  Companies use the labels on products to bring our attention to something about their product that may make them better or different from their competitor's products.  In the beauty industry, sometimes the labels are misleading and you think you are getting benefits that might not really be important.

 Let's take a look at three common labels placed on beauty brands and find out if they are truly important.

Cruelty-Free

This moniker is meant to indicate that no animal testing has been done on the product.  However, the FDA has not approved a legal definition of the label.  In practice, a brand could use this label whether it is true or not.  

Again, in practice, the label is usually used to indicate that the final product has not been tested on animals.  However, this does no...

Are your eyes so irritated that you can't wear your eye makeup?  My patients complain about this to me all the time.  Why is this happening?

If your eyes are red and watery, they may be sensitive to the makeup you're putting on your lids and lashes.  That makes it difficult to wear makeup day after day. 

Years of wearing and caring for your makeup improperly can lead you to this point in your life.   I want to be the first to reassure you though. This is not your fault.  You didn't know that placing your eyeliner inside the eyelashes was harming your eyes.  You don't know which ingredients in your makeup are toxic to your eyes.  No one taught you how to do this properly and the resources weren't available for you to learn it on your own.

The U.S. Beauty Industry

The beauty industry her...

Dry eyes have changed a lot during the pandemic. There are 3 things that have caused dry eye symptoms to worsen for patients who already have it.  Let's explore what has made dry eye worse during the COVID-19 pandemic and what we can do to counter it!

 #1) Masks

Everyone is wearing a mask for some part of the day.  You're breathing and some of this air is going up into your eyes.  All-day long, or as long as you have your mask on, the air is being directed upwards from your nose or mouth into your eyes.  A lot of my patients complain about their eyes feeling drier now than they had before.

In addition, we are avoiding touching our eyes and faces, so you may not be putting artificial tears into your eyes as often as you would like.  Especially, if you are out and about, you may not be u...

What Does It Mean to be CLEAN?

CLEAN makeup refers to a brand that is free of toxic ingredients.  Unfortunately, there are toxic ingredients hiding in some of our favorite makeup brands, which leave residues on our lids and lashes and lead to inflammation. 

These toxic ingredients are like anything else that you can think of being toxic, like eating food that is spoiled. If we eat toxic foods, our stomach would become inflamed and it would be toxic to our insides leading to inflammation, discomfort, and bloating.

What happens with toxic ingredients on the eyes?

When toxic ingredients come into contact with your eyes, they become red, swollen, watery, and irritated.  There are 26 ingredients, which are commonly found in makeup that need to be avoided on the eye.  You can download a lis...

Here in the United States, women love mascara.  We use it every day. In fact, studies show that women apply mascara nine times a week.  That's more than once a day.  And, it's the one makeup we just can't live without.  It's very important to us, but most of us don't know how to care for our mascara.  We don't know when to throw these little beauties out.

Why do I need to throw out my mascara tube?

This is not actually a question I get that often from my patients.  But, it's one that I should get, because not many of us women know the answer.  Mascara, just like a jug of milk or a loaf of bread, has a shelf life. There are preservatives in it to keep it fresh, but they only last so long.

Mascara is applied to our eyelashes, and then the wand is put right back into the tube.  We do thi...

Dry eye disease is actually a skin disease, not an eye disease. I wanted to say something a little bit shocking to start off in this blog.   I want to talk about something that maybe you have never heard before. You've been suffering from dry eye for a long time, you've been searching for someone who could tell you what to do about it, but you've never heard that dry eye disease comes from the skin, not the eyes.  This is a new way of thinking about it.

Evaporative Dry Eye

Studies have shown that over 86% of dry eye sufferers have the evaporative type of dry eye.  Evaporative dry eye means not producing enough oils in the tears, which would cover the tear film and prevent the watery part of the tears from evaporating out into the air.

These oils come from oil glands that line the inside...

What do you do if you have a stye? On last week's blog, we talked about what a stye is, and why they were so much more common during our time of self-quarantine during the COVID-19 shutdown.  Eye doctors across the country commented on multiple panels and blogs that that is the infection that they noticed the most from patients during self-quarantine.  If you missed that blog don't worry, you can go back here to review what a stye is.

Now, if you have a stye, what can you do to treat it? There are a number of things you can try at home to get it to heal before going to your doctor's office.  Here is a list of the best practices:

KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF

Avoid touching your face or eyes as much as possible.  Avoid touching the stye itself.  In the long run, you will just irritate it more.   I...

After several months of some length of self-quarantine, we are all beginning to notice new things about ourselves.  This has been an interesting topic in many a Facebook post over the past few months.  

In the health care industry, we have found many different consequences of staying indoors and keeping away from others.  The country may have slowed the spread of COVID-19 with these measures, but other health dilemmas have come about.

In the eye care industry, we have noticed an increase in eyelid infections, namely styes.  A stye is an infection in the oil glands of the eyelid.   The lid becomes red, tender, and inflamed.   As the infection continues, it tends to concentrate in one round area which is red, raised, and tender to the touch.

There are two types of styes:

• External: ...