Estée Lauder Re-Nutriv Ultimate Lift Age-Correcting Creme & Serum

Seriously. These are not skin care  products

Considering the retail price of these, I thought I was actually lucky to receive them in my Estée Lauder Christmas crackers back in December - the sample of the moisturising cream would retail at around €75 and the sample of the serum, at around €45 - in other words, decent amounts.  I forgot I had these but have been using the combination as night serum and night cream for the last week.  It was a loooooong week.  I wouldn't put this back on my face were I paid to do it.

Re-Nutriv Ultimate Lift Age-Correcting Creme

The Creme

This stuff is expensive (50ml of this will set you back €250 or thereabouts).  And it's nowhere near as good as some other more expensive face creams (Creme de la Mer, Chanel Sublimage, to name just two which are genuinely deserving of their high price tag).

It is a thick cream formulation, which has a bunch of good stuff (like anti-ageing ingredients, vitamins C, E, milk ad vegetable proteins, hyaluronic acid and collagen - all designed to (and proven to) assist with ant-ageing and skin-plumping).  Mind you, they're listed after the bunch of bad stuff

... and a bunch of bad stuff (alcohol, petrolatum, extremely heavy fragrance, parabens)

... and some debatable stuff: oleus barbatus extract & lady's thistle extract, both which can cause irritation - well, something certainly did on my face).

... and some stuff that you don't need in skincare: you don't need bloody ground-up pearls in skincare, to give you luminous skin - this is fine for makeup, it is not fine for skincare.  Theres's also no proof - scientific or empirical - that refined gold dust helps skin at all.  And don't get me started on silicones in skincare.  I may have ranted about this before, once or twice.  The top billing in this "skincare" product goes to various silicones.

Were there any pros?  Yes, my skin most certainly felt softer after using it, at least for the hour or so before I went to bed - there was no lasting difference.

So what were the cons (aside from the ingredients listing)?  Well, it stinks.  It's a sickly sweet, ultra over-the-top cloying floral scent that just refuses to fade away.  (it actually makes me personally slightly queasy and I think, contributed to a headache or two).  And more importantly, it hurts!  My skin had an immediate (and lasting) sensitivity to this cream - it prickled (way beyond a gentle tingle) and bothered the effin' life out of me.  After a couple of days' usage (persevering with the fragrance and the prickly sensation, which, along with the scent, refused to dissipate), I found my skin to be even dryer than before.  Likely down to all the silicones.

Nope, then.  Next...

Re-Nutriv Ultimate Lift Age-Correcting Serum

The Serum

Apparently, this is designed to "deliver up to five times the levels of [...] ingredients found in the cremes" - so far so fair, it is generally true that most serums fit this bill.

According to Lauder, your skin will "immediately feel more lifted—tighter and more toned".

Nope.  This is a standard, extremely silicone-heavy serum.  Sure, it has some of the "good" creme ingredients as mentioned above.  But if it's got five times the "good" creme ingredients, does that equally mean five times as many parabens?  Five times as many silicones?  Five times as much alcohol?   Even if it doesn't why would I use a "skincare" product that actually dries the skin and can cause harm (parabens are known carcinogens)?

It also, annoyingly, has gold, pearl and mica powders, all of which make your skin look shiny and dewy and radiant and luminous, thanks to their pearlescent properties, but it doesn't do much else than alter appearance and perception - those ingredients certainly don't do you any good from a skincare perspective.

It also contains wheat protein, you need to watch out for this one if you're a coeliac.

Either way, having used it for a week, I can safely say it's absolutely and categorically not good enough to justify it's €235 (for 30ml) price tag.

Definite pass.  I shan't be using either of these anymore.  I won't miss the prickly skin or the overbearing, sickly sweet, cloying, clinging scent, every night for starters.