Review (3/5): Moisturizing eye cream, irritates my picky skin
UPDATE: I have reduced my rating to three stars after more use. This cream turned out in the longer term to irritate my eyes, make them swollen, red, and painful. It's in good company though; I have found that everything designed to be an eye cream to help skin health and appearance has irritated my eyes (this is one of four products that have recently had the same effect). So while I cannot personally recommend this cream, my experience of it may be far from universal. I did like how it felt going on, and actually liked the jasmine scent.
ORIGINAL REVIEW (4 stars): The Penebella Brighten & Repair Eye Cream includes a lot of ingredients that are really good for your skin: retinol, hyaluronic acid, aloe, and Vitamin E, among others. It does also contain jasmine essential oil, which is an odd choice to me. I am sensitive to scents, and to floral scents in particular, but this jasmine does not bother me at all, which is surprising. I actually find it to be subtle and pleasant, but nonetheless would not choose to have any fragrance added to a product meant for some of your most sensitive skin around your eyes. It strikes me as unnecessary at best.
This cream does feel light and moisturizing. The very fine needle nose dispenser makes it easy to get precisely the amount of product you intend, which is important when using relatively small amounts of relatively expensive products. I haven't ever ended up with more product than I intended or could use well for application.
When I began using this product, the skin around my eyes were swollen and sensitive from the dry winter air and indoor allergies. After about a week of consistent use, my eyes still feel swollen and sensitive. Honestly, the much simpler, cheaper basic lotion I have for my eyes relieves that feeling better. However, this cream has ingredients that make it better for long term use and improvement. So I will continue to use it and appreciate it for the anti-aging effects, but won't rely on it for daily relief from irritated eyes. If using it longer affects my judgment of this, I will update my review accordingly.