The product: SkinCeuticals Emollience Rich, Restorative Moisturizer
I’ve been slowly testing a few SkinCeuticals products since November, and I’ve found a few that I love… and a few that I’m not so crazy about.
The last SkinCeuticals product that I posted about was their Simply Clean cleanser, which I was really fond of. So, I felt that it was only fair to post a review of their Emollience Moisturizer today, especially considering how many requests I’ve gotten recently for more ‘cone-free moisturizer reviews.
Spoiler alert: it made me feel like a sad, dry, completely unloved sponge.
What I liked about Emollience: I feel like starting with the good stuff today, and there’s definitely good stuff to be found here! For starters, the SkinCeuticals-educated staff at Rao Dermatology were super understanding about my sensitivity to silicones (which many brands are NOT cool about), and they made it easy for me to find products in the range that I could use.
Plus, Emollience is pumped up with sea algae, grape seed oil, and rose hip seed oil to hydrate skin in cold or dry climates, which sounds great. In theory.
What I didn’t like about Emollience: While all of that sounds great in practice, the mostly-water-and-sorbitol Emollience formula just didn’t work for me. It feels awesome going on and absorbs really quickly, but I found that it absorbed into my skin TOO quickly — it was basically gone within seconds.
Within 5 minutes of applying this, my skin feels absolutely parched. The effect is bearable if I mix in a really hydrating oil or serum, but even with extended use, my skin’s hydration levels didn’t normalize. I even tested Emollience with my nifty new Hydration Detector to see if maybe it was just a perceived feeling, but nope: my skin only went up 1% in hydration right after applying Emollience, which isn’t even outside of a good margin of error.
The verdict?
As much as I love SkinCeuticals as a brand, I cannot recommend Emollience to anyone else with dry skin. From the other reviews I’ve read, it sounds like it’s both not hydrating enough for dry skin & too pore-clogging for oily skin, and from my own experiences, I’d have to agree.
Even on the SkinCeuticals site, the people who love Emollience seem to be those with combination skin–not the targeted audience of “normal to dry skin.” Skip this one & save your pennies for the brand’s treatment products!
Availability: $60 USD though dermatologist’s offices & online at SkinCeuticals, depending on where you live. (See the SkinCeuticals site to find in-person locations!)
SkinCeuticals Emollience moisturizer review – packaging
The SkinCeuticals Emollience Moisturizer ingredients:
Water, Sorbitol, Sesame Seed Oil, Propylene Glycol, Stearic Acid, Rosa Canina Leaf Extract, Glyceryl Stearate, Grape Seed Oil, Macadamia Seed Oil, Mango Seed Butter, Triethanolamine, Gellidiela Acerosa (Algae) Extract, Sargassum Filipendula (Algae) Extract, Phenoxyethanol, Hypnea Musciformis (Algae) Extract, Allantoin, Panthenol, Rosemary Leaf Extract, Wild Cherry Bark Extract, Macrocystis Pyrifera Extract, Golden Seal Extract, Henna Extract, Methylparaben, Arctium Majus Root Extract, Fragrance, Trisodium EDTA, Ethylparaben, Propylparaben, Isobutylparaben, Butylparaben, Retinyl Palmitate.
