Satisfying my itch...

I don’t know if it’s having to wear specs, warm air heating, sitting in front of a computer screen all day or plain getting older, but my eyes seem to itch more than they ever used to.

Now in days of yore, giving my itchy eyes a really good rub was almost as satisfying as - wait for it - having a great sneeze (oh for simple, wholesome pleasures). Howevans it’s now a bloody nuisance! Sure it’s still good to begin with, but then the eyes start to become a bit sore, and watery.

Getting fed up with all that, I set about finding a quick and easy fix: forget the long-winded, well-intentioned advice the optician gave me about dabbing them with a warm wet flannel 25 thousand times a day. And at last, after much searching, I’ve found a half-decent answer...

Eyesoothe is a microwaveable eye pad that you wear for 10 minutes (while relaxing and doing whatever takes your fancy). Please note that’s ‘eye pad’: using an ‘i-Pad’ will only result in a squashed nose and headache. When you take the eye pad off, your eyes should feel great for the rest of the day. Mine certainly do. Genuinely refreshed is the best way to describe it.

You just zap the little heat pack for 30 seconds on full power. Then drop it into the mask thingy which you put over your eyes like goggles: it attaches around your head with an elastic strap. When your 10 mins is up, just take the pack out of the mask and zip everything into the heavy plastic envelope Eyesoothe comes in.

One vital thing to remember though. Don’t accidentally leave the heat pack cooking for 3 minutes (instead of 30 seconds) by mis-setting the microwave. If you do it sort of fries the grain inside and, every time you re-use it you get a cooking smell. Not entirely unpleasant, but a sign that you nearly destroyed your pack (mine actually became marginally less effective when I fried it, but fortunately still does its job).

I saw Eyesoothe on the net and thought it was bound to be a gimmicky rip-off. But it really isn’t - it’s quick, clean and works a treat. £12.95 very well spent with Amazon, eye say.