Three different things get called dark circles. Only one of them responds to a cream.
People spend years buying under-eye creams that do nothing, because the circles they have are not the kind a cream can touch. There are three kinds.
Pigment. The skin under the eye is genuinely darker. Often runs in families. Fades slowly with sun protection, never fully. Shadow. The skin is not dark at all — the eye socket is deep, or the under-eye is hollow, and it casts a shadow. No cream will ever change this. Light and makeup will. Tiredness and rubbing. Blood vessels show through thin skin, made worse by allergies, rubbing, screens and short sleep. This one improves fastest.
Stand in front of a mirror and tilt your face up towards a light. If the darkness almost disappears, it is shadow. If it stays exactly the same, it is pigment. That one test tells you what to spend money on.
Shadow: nothing medical. Tell your makeup artist. Colour correction and lighting handle it well. Pigment: sunscreen under the eyes too, and a doctor visit if you want a real plan. Give it three months minimum. Tiredness: sleep, water, treat the allergy if you have one, and stop rubbing your eyes.
Cucumber and potato on the eyes for weeks. Harmless and relaxing. Not a treatment for pigment or shadow. Strong creams under the eye. The skin there is thin. Strong actives often cause redness that looks worse than the circles. Booking under-eye treatments in the last month. Any procedure near the eye can bruise. Bruising is far harder to cover than a circle.
Do the tilt test and find out which kind you have. Sunscreen under the eyes if it is pigment. Tell your artist, early — this is a solved problem in makeup.
It depends on the type. Shadow circles cannot be removed by any cream but are easy to handle with makeup. Pigment fades slowly over months. Tiredness-related circles improve within weeks with sleep and by treating allergies.
For thin, tired-looking skin, a gentle moisturiser helps a little. For shadow and deep pigment, no cream will make a real difference.