I slept eight hours and still got asked if I was having a rough week. Six weeks later nobody asks.

Concealer went on before coffee. Before school drop-off, before the bins, before the door.

It creases by three, so there was a second go in the bathroom at work, and a third if anything was on that evening. Fifteen minutes at the basin, then checking it again at eleven, at three, and before anything that happened after work.

A parcel sat on the mat one morning because I had not finished my face and I was not going to open the door for it.

I skipped the concealer once, on a Sunday, and two people asked whether I was unwell. That is why it ran every morning for twenty years.

The morning bag is mostly fluid. It builds overnight and drains off through the day.

It gets worse with salt, with screens, and with a night on one side of the pillow. Eight hours of sleep does not empty it, which is why the early nights never fixed the mornings.

The skin there is also the thinnest anywhere on the face, so fine lines and crepey texture show up years before they show up anywhere else.

Add the shadow that sits underneath, and the area reads as exhausted on a morning I feel completely fine. I have been asked whether I was unwell on days when nothing at all was wrong, and the reason was always just the skin under my eyes.

I was forty-three at the time. She meant nothing at all by it, and I said so, and we both laughed.

I thought about it for the rest of the week.

A shop assistant called me madam a month later. Somebody stood up to offer me a seat on the bus.

I am forty-three. The number people land on when they guess is not that one.

I have stood in a chemist aisle reading the backs of four different boxes, and every one of them said dark circles.

From a metre away they all look the same. Up close they are four separate things. Fluid, which is the morning bag. Surface texture, which is the fine crinkled lines. Inherited pigment, which is colour sitting in the skin itself. And a hollow in the bone, which is a shadow cast by a dip under the eye.

All four read as tired, and most of what sits on the shelf is sold to all four at once.

A cream works on the surface, and several of the ones in that drawer were good products. Two of them stung, and one brought up little white spots along the orbital bone after six weeks.

Twenty years of jars, all working on top of the skin, and the puffiness sitting underneath it. Nothing in that drawer was ever aimed at one of those four in particular.

Below the surface the list gets short, and most of it runs through somebody else's diary.

Needles come first. Filler is aimed at a hollow, and mine went in once, which was enough.

Laser and photofacials sit next to those, at thousands of dollars and a fortnight of staying home. Three sessions at $1800 did nothing at all for the puffiness.

Then there is light. Clinics have been charging for light sessions for years.

Mine runs low-level light at $225 a visit on a standing monthly booking, and the panel in the room is a A$3,500 machine. The at-home versions from the known names sell here between A$600 and A$900.

Light is the only thing on that list that comes home with you. One purchase, nobody else's diary, nothing left on the skin.

Red light at 630nm works in the top layers of the skin, where crepey texture and fine lines sit.

Near-infrared at 850nm reaches past the point where a cream stops, down to where the puffiness and the heaviness sit.

Both are the same wavelengths the professional units run, and both are printed on the box where anybody can check them.

The device is the Astir Halo. It is worn like a pair of glasses, held by a soft band, so the light lands on the under-eye and the top of the cheekbone.

If the shadow lifted under your finger, or the crinkled texture is there, this is built for exactly that.

The area looks less puffy and less tired, and the fine lines look softer. Weeks, not minutes, and smaller than a transformation.

Results vary.

→ Start your 60 days on your own face

The first fortnight gave me nothing I could point to. I kept going because 10 minutes with my eyes shut was the easiest thing in my routine.

Around week four the mornings started to differ from each other. By week six the area looked less puffy on most mornings, it looked less tired, and the fine lines under the brow looked softer.

The concealer went from every morning to some mornings.

The postman knocked on a Tuesday and I opened the door with nothing on my face. It took me until that evening to notice I had done it.

Not dramatic. I look less tired, and I will take it.

Same downlight. Same mirror running the whole length of the wall. Wet hair, no makeup, nothing to hide behind.

I looked up out of habit, braced for it. The area under my eyes looked like the rest of my face.

She talked about her holiday for forty minutes and did not ask me anything about how I was feeling.

Nothing at school pick-up, nothing in the kitchen at work, and nobody at the after-school club has asked me anything at all.

Nobody knows there is a device. The comments stopped, and that was the entire point.

It goes on like a pair of glasses, held by a soft band, runs for 10 minutes and switches itself off.

I did it on the sofa most evenings, and that is the only reason it outlasted everything else I have ever bought.

124 grams. Five intensity levels. No serum, no current, nothing to rub in and nothing left on the skin afterwards.

The silicone shields ring each eye opening, and my eyes stayed closed for the whole 10 minutes.

If being careful about your eyes is your instinct, that is the right instinct to have.

It looks ridiculous. My daughter has photographs.

She can keep them. The under-eyes look less ridiculous than they did.