Up to my eyes

The woman in the beauty place where I went for an eye treatment wasn't impressed. Her: Those dark circles under your eyes? Me: What dark circles?

Her: The dark circles there and there - that's because you've been putting moisturiser under your eyes, haven't you? Me (mumbling): Maybe. Her: Speak up. Me: Oh alright. Yes, constantly. Satisfied? Her: Just as I thought. The old substituting regular moisturiser for eye cream trick. Well, I'll see what I can do, but I'm a therapist, not a miracle worker. Me: Huh? Speak up. Her: Oh, nothing. Listen to the dolphin music. You've lovely eyelashes by the way.

That last one is the barrel-scraping compliment that's been used by make-up artists for centuries. But hey, I'll take whatever compliments I can get, thank you very much. Since the stress-induced problem with my eyes developed, I've become obsessed with finding the perfect eye cream to combat the puffiness, redness and general unloveliness of this area. Up to now, I had lived a perfectly full life without these products. Sure, I knew about moisturisers and remembered to apply the stuff every other day, or at least when my skin started to take on the texture and look of pink crepe paper. But dedicated eye products? A whole new world.

After extensive research I can now confirm that you should in no circumstances put regular moisturiser on this sensitive area because it's too heavy and leads to dark circles. And apparently the skin around your eyes is 10 times thinner than the skin on rest of your body so it needs special care. Shocking, I know.

The therapist was a lovely girl really. I don't know what it was, perhaps the soft lighting or the fact that I was mentally and emotionally exhausted, but I started telling her all my non-beauty-related woes. It was like being in a confession box without the grumpy old man or the heart-twisting guilt. Plus you could lie down. Bless me lady for I have sinned, it's been several months since my last exfoliation.

She listened, feigning interest, before dispatching me into the night with a slightly bruised credit card and a range of products. She said the 28-day eye detox would only work if I took it every day, which of course I immediately forgot to do. The eye gel seemed to make the problem worse, but the freebie sachets of intensive eye-repair cream worked mini-miracles. The problem was that the same freebie sachets ran out after a few days and I found myself going eye-cream cold turkey on a Sunday, trawling the internet to find a replacement.

While trying to find out where the stuff is sold on Sundays, I stumbled across www.beaut.ie, an Irish website run by two pampering-savvy and witty women who seem to know an awful lot about this kind of thing. Cursing these ladies under his breath, my boyfriend was swiftly dispatched to find a product called All About Eyes Rich, which allegedly "reduces circles and puffs", although I've just slathered on half the titchy €30 jar and I can't say I notice any difference. Having said that, it's nearly 4am and I'm sitting in work and I have been staring numbly at a screen for 10 hours.

In the same way that I wish someone would take me by the hand and help me purchase one of those capsule wardrobes I've hankered after for years, I wish someone would attend to my need for a capsule beauty regime. You can outsource everything these days. Surely someone with a bit of know-how can go down to the chemist for me? It's an emergency. For proof I offer the recent declutter of my bathroom, which produced half a dozen, half-empty tubs of body butter, several dodgy-looking frizz-eradicating potions and a crusty bag of year-old Epsom salts.

I read about things like the must-have Chanel black nail varnish and I end up buying a glittery one I'll never wear. I read about the importance of proper make-up brushes but perversely keep buying cheap ones and then wondering why there are stray black hairs all over my scratched-to-pieces face.

On the one hand, I don't want to be overly consumed by the need to purchase a "cult" product such as the fabled Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream, but on the other hand I want to go on the beaut.ie message board and bond with others over Yves San Laurent Touche Éclat.

Instead, I buy a pair of sturdy Clarks boots for half price in the sale. They may not help my eyes but they do simulate the experience of wearing slippers. On the downside, they look like the kind of boots worn by women who wheel their shopping around in a tartan trolley and wear orange lipstick from circa 1973.

I think I'd better think it out again.