Can you please let me know why eye cream is going inside skin/causing irritation?

Hi. I had tried an retinol cream for under eyes dark circles, and I went on applying it for 6 months, day and night. Now I got an issue where I am unable to apply any cream (not even soap) under eyes, because I'm getting eye irritation. I'm having this issue for more than a year. I don't have any skin irritation where I applied the cream, but only eye irritation. Can you please let me know what happened? Why is my skin allowing creams/soap into my eyes even though I didn't put it on my eyes.