The One Eye Makeup Mistake You're Always Making

​We've used every trick in the beauty book to brighten our eyes before we apply makeup. Green tea bags, cold spoons, applying white eyeliner to your rims and inner corners – the list goes on. But there's something we've been forgetting about all along (HUGE mistake) and it's a total game changer. The best bit? You'll find what you need at the chemist.

So to create a sexy AF smoky eye that screams I-had-eight-hours-sleep, simply apply eye drops formulated to reduce red eyes. Because, those blood vessels are really cramping your style and you don't want to channel this look:

Or more subtly:

They actually put the whites of your eyes on par with alpine snow (Kylie Jenner-style) – just sayin'. And that's because they're magic (kind of), explains Anh Kieu, an orthoptist at PersonalEYES Sydney and an active member of Orthoptics Australia. ​

​"Their main active ingredient is usually naphazoline hydrochloride, tetrahydrozoline hydrochloride or oxymetazoline hydrochloride and a strong preservative to keep the bottles for one month after opening. They act as a vasoconstrictor to the blood vessels by shrinking the tiny blood vessels on the white part of the eye, the sclera, making them less visible hence 'whitening the eye'."

And look, if that thought of eye drops makes you squirm (the application alone can be a bit awks considering you have to watch a dropper hover over your eye while you anticipate that liquid hit), you could always just try and prevent the whole red eye situation in the first place.

"Red eyes can be caused by lack of sleep, prolonged reading and computer use, increased sun and wind exposure and other environmental exposures like illicit substance use," Anh said.

It's also important to consider whether what's causing those red eyes is actually a little more serious.

"They might be caused by potentially sight threatening diseases like acute-angle closure glaucoma, Uveitis or eye infections. Serious eye diseases need to be ruled out by an Ophthalmologist before prolonged and recurrent red eye drops should be used."

Anh explained it's best to use red eye drops temporarily, in case you're actually masking any of these eye diseases, along with causing further irritration because of the strong preservatives used in eye drops.

You should also try to get loads of sleep, wear protective UV index sunglasses and try using preservative-free lubricants instead of strong red eye drops.

So in other words, we should just become Prevention People, as opposed to Cure People.

While we won't be using "red eye" drops on the reg, we'll definitely pop some in for special occasions like date night (which isn't really that regular anyway) because they really do make the BIGGEST difference when it comes to how sparkly your eyes look.

This article originally appeared on Cosmopolitan.com.au