Serums; the Magic Fluid

Beautiful skin requires commitment, not a miracle. - Erno Laszlo

You're never too young to begin using a serum. Let's just get that out of the way right off. Serums are a rather newfangled idea that has emerged as a highly beneficial skincare addition in the past decade or so. Moisturizers have become lighter (in comparison to cold creams of the early 1900s), and supplemental moisture retaining products have become more common, but most ladies don't start worrying about their skincare routine until they see those minuscule creases forming around their face. By that time, it's too late to reverse the damage even though it's never too late to maintain and pump the brakes on the aging process.

“Serums are not designed to moisturize the skin such as a moisturizer would,” says Andy Bevacqua, VP of Research & Development for La Mer. “They’re designed to have a more focused delivery of ingredients to better target specific skin concerns.” They are crafted uniquely to pinpoint problem areas whether it's collagen production, added moisturization, evening skin-tone from dark spots, balancing pH levels, restoring skin from damaging free radicals, etc.

"The effectiveness of a serum is… solely reliant upon the quality and concentration of the active ingredients," Guylaine Palmer, an Image Consultant at Donato Salon, explains. So not just any humdrum serum does the trick, just like essential oils and their effectiveness in their purity. That's why I researched the two serums below and found them to be affordable, mid-range products that do their job decently well for the price. Mario Badescu's serum focuses on brightening the skin and retaining youthfulness by diminishing fine lines using key ingredients like sodium hyaluronate and collagen. Glossier's serum focuses on trapping and retaining moisture using collagen and Vitamin B to boost skin's elasticity.

Glossier Super Bounce Serum & Mario Badescu Vitamin C Serum

The Mario Badescu one is my favorite of these serums for two reasons; the smell and the tangible moisture. It's not that Glossier's isn't moisturizing; it just dries up or absorbs into the skin faster and feels like more of a watery gel base than an oil base. The Vitamin C serum smells like a garden of goodness, like every wonderful, beneficial thing you could ever discover was squeezed into a bottle

Mario Badescu is $45 for 1oz, and Glossier is $28 for 0.5oz, so if you had to choose one, the Vitamin C serum has more bang for your buck, and it seems to have a more generalized, universal benefit than the Super Bounce, so it could double as a daytime as well as a nighttime serum. Currently, I use the Mario Badescu serum in the morning underneath my SPF moisturizer and the Glossier serum at night underneath my generic moisturizer.

I have recently purchased the Mario Badescu Herbal Hydrating Serum which is $30 for 1oz, and I'm psyched to try it! It's instructions are to put it on top of moisturizer which is odd, but it has terrific reviews and boasts