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    Eye Care: 5 Habits to Break

    By | Beauty on Shine – Mon, Jan 7, 2013 12:24 PM EST

    Rory Evans, Allure magazine

    Open your eyes: People unwittingly-and commonly-do damage to their thinnest skin by engaging in these behaviors.

    1. Using too little sun protection. Some sunscreens feel like Sriracha when they find their way to the retina, which may explain why people often skip over the eye area when applying. "But you really want to put it all the way around the eye, the brow bone, even the upper eyelid,: Dover says. (Don't neglect the corners of the eyes, where crow's-feet form.) For a gentle and effective formula, try Neutrogena Pure & Free Liquid Daily Sunscreen SPF 50.

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    2. Side-sleeping. It can be a hard thing to maintain, given your slumber, but try to sleep on your back. "If you lie on your side, it causes creasing in the skin," Katz says. Over time, it remains etched in there.

    3. Applying makeup heavy-handedly. Use a brush to put on eye shadow and concealer, since fingers can tug at skin. And then remove all makeup every night. "You don't want to block ducts on the lids," Dover says-it can lead to itchiness, redness, and more rubbing.

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    4. Squinting like Clint Eastwood.     All the news that's fit to print can now actually fit in 6.7 square inches, if you're reading The New York Times on the doll-size iPhone screen. And we wonder why we have premature crow's-feet? If you squint a lot while you read, consider reading glasses with glare treatment. Outdoors, cover up with big, Breakfast at Tiffany's-style sunglasses. If you have corrected vision but still wear off-the-rack sunglasses, splurge on the prescription upgrade. "Wearing regular glasses without UV filters outside magnifies the sun's rays, increasing skin damage," Katz says. And be sure that the shades you get have 100 percent UVA and UVB protection.

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    5. Puffing on purpose.     An eye area that has the texture and sallowness of an old dishrag may not be the most pressing concern for smokers, but a number of studies have shown smoking's harm to skin, including the finding that skin cells exposed to cigarette smoke produce 40 percent less collagen than normal.