If you've ever had to pretend to cry for a play, costume, or joke, you know it can be frustrating to get red eyes exactly when you want and make them look irritated. Getting your eyes red is an imperfect science - it can be very difficult to get the same result every time, even when using the same method. However, by using smart, safe strategies to irritate your eyes, make yourself cry, or use makeup when necessary, it's usually possible to get great results, even when it's not always predictable.
Steps
Method 1 of 4: Harmlessly irritate your eyes
Step 1. Peel an onion and rub a small piece under your eye
What cheap, widely available product can make someone's eyes water and redden in minutes? It's not a Hallmark card - it's an ordinary onion! Onions produce syn-propanethial-S-oxide, a chemical irritant that makes your eyes water and red. Peeling or chopping an onion normally makes your eyes water, but you may need to expose them longer to make your eyes water enough to turn them red. Try holding the middle part or part of the peel under your eyes a few times if you want to get your eyes red.
- Do not use so-called 'sweet' onions (such as Vidalia onions), as they often do not cause enough irritation and tears. For best results, use a strongly scented white or yellow onion.
- For a gentler approach, place a few pieces of the onion on a tissue or handkerchief and rub the tissue under your eyes. The barrier protects your eye itself from direct contact with the onions, but the irritant should still have an effect, as long as the tissue material isn't too thick.
- If you're trying to pretend you're crying, for added effect, try rubbing a little on the bottom of your nostrils to get a runny nose.
- Be careful and avoid touching the onion directly, as this can be quite unpleasant.
Step 2. Alternatively, you can use peppermint oil
A method that is almost identical to the method above is to use products that contain peppermint oil. Simply use the same steps - dab a little under each eye - to get a very similar effect, as the vapor from the oil irritates the eyes. As above, avoid getting the oil in your eyes as it can sting and cause persistent discomfort.
Peppermint oil is available at most upscale grocery stores, specialty stores, and health food stores. However, if you don't already have some, it may be cheaper to use menthol or an onion, as peppermint oil is often more expensive
Step #3. Resist the urge to blink
If you need instant red-eye, don't worry - you can get them without using any kind of special material. Simply keep your eyes open for as long as you can, fighting the urge to blink until it becomes too painful. Since frequent blinking is the body's way of keeping the eyes moisturised, if you don't do this, the eyes will dry out. When this happens, the eyes will often become irritated, swollen, and red, and your eyes will be watery. Please note, this can feel very unpleasant!
For added effect, try looking into the light while keeping your eyes open. However, do not use a very bright light or the sun, as this can permanently damage your eyes and even make you blind
Step 4. Gently rub the area under your eyes
One method of red-eye triggering often used in TV and movies is to make fists and rub the area around your eyes. This mild form of physical irritation can cause the same kind of symptoms as the onions and other chemical irritants - namely red tear eyes. If you try this method, make sure to use gentle pressure. Crucial parts of the eye like the iris and cornea can be very sensitive, so don't damage your eyesight just to get your eyes red.
In addition, make sure that you keep your eyes closed and do not touch your eye directly. This can transfer bacteria from your hands (which contain millions of bacteria from normal daily activities) to your eyeball, potentially leading to a painful infection
Step 5. Spend time in the pool
Chlorine is a great sanitizer for swimming pools, but it's also an eye irritant, though some sources suggest it's due to other chemical culprits. What is clear is that diving into a chlorinated pool without goggles can make your eyes swollen and inflamed (although the damage is often not as serious or persistent). The effect is magnified if you keep your eyes open underwater for a long time. Make sure you don't wear goggles, as goggles protect your eyes and stop the effect of the pool.
Saltwater baths also work well for this purpose. However, some health experts argue that salt water is less irritating than chlorine, so it may be less effective
Step 6. Get less sleep
While not an ideal solution for everyone (certainly not for people who need to be sharp and focused for some reason the next day), skipping a night often makes your eyes red and bloodshot in the morning. As long as you don't make it a habit, it often won't have a dramatic impact on your health if you don't sleep at night.
- Repeated sleep deprivation is something you never want to do, as it has serious health consequences, including: limited cognitive ability, decreased libido, depression and an increased risk of serious conditions, such as stroke and heart disease.
- Never drive a car when you are seriously tired or drowsy. Sleep deprivation reduces your reflexes and limits your responsiveness, making you a major hazard on the road. A study from Australia shows that people who are awake for 24 hours are just as limited as someone with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.10 (the legal limit in most countries is often around 0.08).
Method 2 of 4: Using psychological strategies
Step 1. Put yourself in a sad or depressed mood
Learning to get your eyes red and teary on command to fake crying can be a serious challenge - even professional actors often struggle with it. While there is no right way to do this, certain psychological tricks can be very useful. A helpful strategy is to focus on memories and ideas that make you sad, such as a close family member who passed away, a humiliating situation you were in, or a major worry or fear in your life. As unpleasant as it is to experience that again, the darker and more depressed your thoughts are, the more they can help you to cry.
- A few more examples of things to think about are: breakups, recent discussions, problems at work, times when friends or family betrayed you, people who have disappeared from your life, and times when you've been very scared. about yourself or someone you are attached to.
- It can be especially helpful to try to convince yourself that all the people you know have their lives for each other, except you. Try to evoke feelings of despair - think 'This is it - I will never be successful and happy'. However, make sure you don't stay in this mood after pretending to be sad. The last thing you want to do is make yourself really depressed.
Step 2. Focus on personal suffering
In the words of an acting teacher at New York University, an actor who tries to pretend to cry "must connect the moment or the text with something specific and personal, so that it is less about what is expected of them, and it's more about their inner secrets, desires, and fear.” In other words, the best way to make yourself sad enough to cry is to lose yourself in your thoughts about your deepest, darkest inner fears and demons. Try to mentally convince yourself that the task at hand that requires you to fake crying is only about assessing yourself as a person, even when it isn't. Be prepared to dig up and confront your worst personal demons.
A key actor, Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston, has revealed in interviews how his most intense inner fears have helped him deliver a convincing performance from someone with a haunted mentality. Speaking of the scene where his character sees a younger female character die, Cranston said: "My real daughter's face took her place, so it just touched me… She's just a girl - it could have been my daughter."
Step 3. Make yourself angry or frustrated
Red tear eyes don't just always come from sadness. Sometimes these symptoms are caused by intense feelings of anger or frustration, especially when they are caused by someone you care about. If you struggle to cry over purely sad thoughts, try mixing it with a healthy dose of anger to get results. For example, you may think about a current problem in your life that is very frustrating to you, such as a family member with self-destructive behavior who does not listen to your advice.
A few more examples of things to think about are: the times when you were passed over for an award or promotion, the times when your enemies beat you, the times when you were treated unfairly by someone who had power over you and the times when you have seen or experienced social injustice
Step 4. Use moving media to help you
The motivation to get full doesn't have to come 100% from within - sometimes it can really help to use external sources. This is a strategy often used by actors to get into the right mindset for an emotional scene and look like someone experiencing these intense emotions. Movies, books, songs, and other art forms that evoke deep sadness or frustration can be very effective for that - here are some ideas to get you started, but there are many more.
- Movies: The Notebook, The Green Mile, The Fault in Our Stars, Titanic, Dumbo, Up and Come and See (Russian film).
- Books: The Kite Runner, The Giver, Wuthering Heights, The Idiot, all the older parts of Harry Potter, and all the books the movies above are based on.
- Songs: Yesterday (Beatles), The Needle and the Damage Done (Neil Young), Brenda's Got a Baby (Tupac Shakur), Bad Religion (Frank Ocean) and just about any Elliott Smith song.
Step 5. Keep your expectations in check
It's important to keep in mind that the strategies in this section may be even more difficult to work with than the other tricks in this article, even if you're someone who cries easily when you're sad. It can be very hard to get yourself sad enough to cry, just like it can be hard to tickle yourself. Even the greatest actors often have a hard time crying on command, so be prepared to use a different method if these psychological strategies don't work for you.
Method 3 of 4: Faking red eye
Step 1. Consider using makeup
"If you can't make it, fake it!" With the right tricks, it's possible to aesthetically make your eyes look red and puffy as if you've just cried, even when you're feeling perfectly fine. Since these tricks don't irritate your eyes, they are much more pleasant than some of the methods above. For example, use this makeup strategy to give yourself red eyes:
- Apply small dots of red eyeliner around the outline of your eye. You can also use a red eyeshadow or red lip liner, but make sure the lip liner you use is mild enough to use on your eyes before applying it. Apply the dots all over the lower eyelid margin. For a stronger red effect, you can also apply dots on the upper eyelid edge.
- Spread the lip liner over your skin with a cotton swab or makeup smudge stick. To make your eyes look red, apply a slightly more muted shade of red around your lids. None of the original lines or dots should be visible, so keep wiping it out until you can no longer see the original dots.
Step 2. Consider getting colored contact lenses
Another easy way to give your eyes a red effect is to wear specially made lenses with a red tint or with drawn veins. However, with this it is important to choose a contact lens that makes the whites of the eyes red, and not the iris (the part that is usually blue, green or brown). Giving yourself red irises makes you look like a vampire or a demon, not someone who just cried.
A number of stage supply companies make custom contact lenses for movies and stage, so shop here if you're looking for a high-quality product. They probably aren't cheap though - professional quality lenses can easily cost over $100
Step 3. Enhance the effect with a tear stick
If you want to fake red eyes for a play or movie production, it might be a good idea to combine the tricks above with some real tears to make the effect look even more realistic. In this case, you might want to consider buying a tear stick, a tool used by some actors that basically amounts to a stick of semi-solid gel or wax that contains menthol. The tear stick usually comes in a tube that looks like lipstick and is applied by rubbing it under your eyes, where the vapor from the menthol will make your eyes water.
Pay attention; Since the active ingredient in a tear stick is menthol, this method works exactly like the menthol suggestion in the section above
Method 4 of 4: Know what to avoid
Step 1. Do not use strong irritants such as pepper, tear gas, etc
It's never a good idea to seriously risk your eye health for the sake of getting convincing red eyes. Never put anything in your eyes that could cause serious irritation, including intense chemical irritants such as tear gas (pepper spray) and natural substances such as hot pepper products. In sufficient quantities, these substances can cause permanent damage and even blindness.
Step 2. Do not directly irritate your eyeball
If you use a method of rubbing the skin around the eyes to make them red, be careful not to touch the naked eyeball itself. Even if you manage not to damage it, you risk getting bacteria from your hands onto your eyeball, which can lead to infections (as mentioned in the section above). This risk is increased if you've just touched something with a lot of bacteria on it (like a door handle).
In addition, since your eyeballs are so sensitive, touching your eyeballs directly can sometimes cause physical injury. Even the smallest scratches on your eye can be quite unpleasant, while more serious injuries (such as an irritated cornea) may require medical attention
Step 3. Don't use marijuana specifically for red eyes
We've all heard it before - marijuana use leads to comically red eyes. While this is true, it is not a good idea to smoke (or eat) marijuana products to make your eyes red. If you want to create the red-eye effect for acting purposes, the limited cognitive ability caused by marijuana can make it difficult to give a suitable, convincing performance. In addition, marijuana intoxication is punishable by law, with penalties ranging from minor penalties to severe penalties depending on the jurisdiction of the country/territory you are in.
Tips
- When you take a shower, try getting a little bit of shampoo in your eyes - this causes red eyes, but can also make it equally difficult to open them.
- When using the pool method, try to keep your eyes open underwater for as long as you can.
Warnings
- Do not rub menthol near your eyes. This can make your skin swell and make your eyes water.
- Avoid getting a chemical irritant directly into your eye. The tear fluid in your eyes tries to remove the irritants, and that response is a natural, healthy response since those irritants can actually damage your eye itself.