I’ve long been accused of having RBF, or resting bitch face. Even before I experienced the natural lines of aging, which usually is an indicator of RBF, I often came across as being angry, annoyed, irritated or contemptuous. Not only because I did in fact feel angry, annoyed, irritated and contemptuous, but also because my eyelids naturally hang at sort of half-mast, covering the top of my retina and exposing the top of my eyelid of my deep-set eyes. It was more like resting bored face, and as I’ve gotten older, the effect has become more pronounced. I’m used to looking perpetually sleepy, stoned or just over it all, but really, it’s not the most attractive look. And it’s hard to make an effort to smize my way through life to look enthused. So when I heard about Upneeq, the oddly-named prescription eye drops that make your eyes open up, I was intrigued.
Do the ‘Knife-Free’ Upper Bleph Drops Really Work? I Got a Prescription to Test Them Out
Can you get the look without the surgery?
The Problem
Droopy eyelids, or as it’s known clinically, acquired blepharoptosis. It’s the way your face looks if your upper eyelid hangs low, aka low-lying eyelids. By contrast, if you can see the whites of your eyes above your retina, or lots of the upper curve of your retina, that’s a perky eyelid and an open, alert-looking eye. Droopy eyelids like mine droop way into the retina, looking narrow and somewhat sleepy. The effect of a low-lying lid can be sexy—look, I’m squinting in a come-hither way at you!—but more likely, it reads as haggard when I look back at myself in the mirror. Acquired ptosis is often a later-in-life occurrence, since that upper lid gets weaker with age.
The Solution
Upneeq (oxymetazoline hydrochloride ophthalmic solution), a one-percent solution, is a prescription eyedrop used to treat acquired blepharoptosis (low-lying lids) in adults. Since low-lying lids can be caused by muscle weakness, which is no big deal, but also can be a symptom of serious conditions such as stroke and/or brain aneurysm, Horner syndrome, myasthenia gravis, loss of the ability to move eye muscles, eye infection and eye tumors, the FDA requires a doctor’s prescription to take the medicine. It’s a simple one-drop-in-each-eye treatment, and the eye-opening effect lasts up to eight hours.
My Review
Honestly, I was a bit hesitant to put some strange drops in my eyes, since we only get this one pair of peepers in our lifetime. However, the online intake form for Upneeq linked me to the telehealth provider SkinSolutions.MD, where I answered a battery of questions about my health, vision and medical history for $15, a fee that was subtracted from subsequent Uqneeq orders. I had no history of stroke or eye trouble, so I was cleared to get my trial vials of the eye drops, which cost as little as $4.50 per application.
I pulled down my lower lid, put in one drop per eye, being careful not to touch the single-application vial to my skin, then waited. I’d read that between 1 and 5 percent of users experienced complications, which might include eye inflammation, eye redness, dry eye, blurred vision, eye pain at time of use, eye irritation and headache, so I tried to relax and waited. I looked in the mirror and thought, hmm, no big wide eyes yet, but no stroke either. While I waited, I turned to Reddit to maybe scare myself now that I’d already dosed.
After reading about users who experienced dry mouth, nosebleeds and in one case, a person who wrote “after using for a long time my eyes now feel like pressure squishing them.” I was duly alarmed. But then I looked in the mirror and wow! Suddenly, my entire face looked brighter and I appeared—even to myself—to look really happy since my eyes were now super open. I’m glad I took pictures before and after, since the effect wasn’t so different as to be shocking, but I definitely looked…better. Like I'd had a full night’s sleep or had put on eye makeup.
My Takeaway
My eyes opened a little bigger over the next hour, then stayed that way all day. I didn’t have any lasting side effects, and after a night’s sleep, it was just me and my low-lying lids, facing the day together. While I fully appreciated Upneeq and its effects, I’m saving my single-vial drops for special occasions when I want to look my best, including events when there will be lots of photos taken. I’m pretty conservative when it comes to medicines or injectables, so I won’t be using Upneeq every day. But I’m glad to have it on hand for when I want to look a little more alert than usual.
