Sometimes Your Eyes Need a Little Horse Fat
From snake venom to donkey milk there’s always some unusual and unique ingredient in Korean beauty products particularly skincare. If you’re looking for weird and unusual pop on a Farm Stay Horse Oil & Gold Hydrogel Eye Patch and call me in the morning. These little eye patches contain a host of interesting ingredients including snail slime and of course, horse fat or oil.
Before you start running in horror at the idea of horse fat making a guest starring appearance in your skincare let me give you a little back story. In certain Asian and European countries eating horse meat is fairly common. Just call me Andrew Zimmern because I’ve traveled quite a lot and in my travels I’ve eaten quite a few unusual things, horse meat being one (it pretty much tastes like venison). I am not a vegetarian by any means and I do eat meat. I do considered myself squeamish when it comes to food and maybe even picky as I don’t like my foods to touch. My father finds this wildly funny and he commonly lectures me about how it all ends up in my stomach anyway and it’s likely “touching”. But yeah, I’m kind of weird with food. Oddly enough, I am a bit adventurous though and I have eaten quite a few odd things including spiders, grasshoppers, and other oddities. Yeah…! So, a little backstory there to go along with this review.
The reason I mention this is because even though horse meat isn’t something you’ll see at a supermarket in the US it is fairly common in certain countries and and any left over fat is rendered into oil which is used in skincare. It’s important to know that Korea or any other country is not raising horses just to create eye patches. They raise them for food and later the left over fat is used in other products such as these patches.
Gross, yes, but horse oil or fat is actually a beneficial skincare ingredient. Hell, if I haven’t lost you yet you might even be willing to try the Farm Stay Horse Oil & Gold Hydrogel Eye Patch and if you’re already applying some sort of snail slime on your face why not horse oil?
If you’re a fond fan of Shangpree Eye Patches I think I can convince you to try Farm Stay’s formula which is heaps cheaper and just as good in my opinion. I happen to love Shangpree’s but I think they are a bit overpriced.
A set of 60 eye patches will set you back around $10-$15 and they arrive in a tube that has a spatula for scooping the pads out same as Shangpree’s version. I never understood the spatula as I’ve come across eye patches that are cheaper which have a plastic tweezers to pick this up which I find easier as eye patch proves difficult to scoop up using the spatula but meh at least my hands aren’t touching them. The patches fit easily under your eyes and are a clear gold shade with a slippery texture. I typically lay on my back and read, listen to music, or play on my phone while I have them on for 30 minutes as if I sit up or lay on my side I need to readjust them since they slide around.
These are formulated with everyone’s favorite moisturizing ingredients snail secretion and of course, glycerin. Horse fat is actually lower on the ingredient list but still makes up a good portion of the formulation none the less. They also contain other moisturizing ingredients such as castor oil. Horse oil rendered from horse fat contains an essential fatty acid which is linolenic acid and helps to maintain and repair the barrier of the skin. It provides excellent hydration and seems to seal in moisture when I use eye cream after the eye patch.
I tend to use these patches three or four times a week after a facial sheet mask and before my other skincare. After I apply my favorite eye cream and my finer lines look much less noticeable and my under eye area is much more hydrated come the morning. If moisture is something you are lacking under your eyes these are something that can definitely be beneficial to your routine. I wouldn’t say they are an end all result as I do find they work best when I use my eye serum followed up by eye cream in the evening. My eyes seem to look much better when I’m using them in conjunction with my other under eye skincare.
If the idea of horse oil isn’t making you too squeamish these eye patches might just help get you a little more moisture under your dry under eyes.
Farm Stay Horse Oil & Gold Hydrogel Eye Patch can be purchased on ebay.com, amazon.com, or at yesstyle.com.