no7 lift luminate triple action reviews
You can purchase all products reviewed and mentioned on BeautyStat.com!
Skincare Review, Photos, Swatches, Ingredients, Trend 2017, 2018: No7 Lift & Luminate TRIPLE ACTION Serum, Ready For More Campaign
The new No7 READY FOR MORE campaign featuring world-renowned ballet dancer is in celebration of No7’s biggest, most powerful and effective anti-aging launch for 2017 – Lift & Luminate TRIPLE ACTION Serum (it launched in the UK last spring and had a waitlist of 12,000!). This is No7’s first serum to deliver three clinically proven anti-aging results: wrinkles are reduced in appearance, skin is noticeably firmer and skin tone is more even.
As part of this launch, No7 is launching a new campaign with internationally renowned ballet dancer Alessandra Ferri called READY FOR MORE. We want to celebrate that moment when beauty really works and most importantly what comes after – what women can achieve when they feel at their most beautiful.We know our No7 women want to make a positive impact on their world. They’re getting ready to run meetings and marathons. Ready to pick up trophies and kids. And, from skincare to cosmetics, No7 gives women that extra little bit of confidence to go out and do these things. We put them in control of their own beauty, helping them feel prepared to get out there. Because when we’re in control of how we show up in the world, the impact we have is more positive. It’s not about showing off, it’s about showing up.The focus is changing from women simply getting ready to a recognition of what women are getting ready for.
The premise is to inspire and enable women globally, to look and feel their most beautiful, so that they feel ready to take on life and create the most positive impact in their world. At 19 years old, Alessandra was the youngest leading ballet dancer at the Royal Ballet in London. And now at 53 years old, Alessandra is returning to the stage – she most recently reprised her role of Juliet, which she first played as a teenager. Alessandra encapsulates who this product is for: women who, whatever their career, passion or role in life, have so much more to give and want their skin to be as vibrant as they are.
Lift & Luminate TRIPLE ACTION Serum is for women who start to notice specific aging concerns like uneven skin tone, lack of firmness and wrinkles and lines. It combines the most powerful anti-wrinkle technology (Matrixyl 3000 Plus), with new active ingredients to aid in skin firmness and promote an even skin tone. The complex also includes hibiscus extract, hyaluronic acid and a new lightening complex.
CLINICAL RESULTS & CLAIMS
The serum has been proven in 20 trials, including clinical and consumer testing on over 1,500 women from around the world (UK, USA and Thailand).
Consumer Trials:
– After 2 weeks, 87% agreed their skin looked younger
– After 8 weeks, 80% of women agreed their skin had not looked or felt so good in a long time
Clinical Trials* (6 months in duration, product applied 2X/day, split face):
– 89% of subjects showed a visible reduction in the appearance of wrinkles
– 92% of subjects had improved skin firmness (elasticity or bounce)
– 77% of subjects had a more even skin tone (dark spots/pigmentation)
Price: $33.99
Availability: Walgreens, Target, select Ulta stores and Walgreens.com, Target.com and Ulta.com
You can purchase all products reviewed and mentioned on BeautyStat.com!
Are you ready for younger looking skin with No7 Lift & Luminate TRIPLE ACTION Serum?
Twelve hours was somewhat of a stretch for me as eight to occasionally ten is kind of my limit of foundation wear time. It was also why I chose this day to photograph as it was kind of an extreme wear test for me. Unless something extraordinarily unexpected happens, this is about the limit of time I would expect a foundation to work on me.
Foundation Review: No 7 Lift and Luminate Triple Action Serum Foundation with SPF 15
As you know, I love testing new foundations. Or at least new to me foundations. There are so many foundations out there. And while occasionally I will catch one at first release, often I see the release and then mentally bookmark it as something to try later on. Sometimes it takes me a while to work my way around to it.
I started my foundation quest because the foundation I was using at the time finished and I found it had been discontinued. I have long since found many other foundations I really enjoy using so that I can rotate through products and not worry too badly if one of them gets discontinued as I am not focused entirely on one favorite. What I have also found is that I really enjoy a wide variety of products. Foundations come in all sorts of formulas and textures as well as coverage levels and I find that somedays I just prefer one formula over another.
I kind of like having the variety.
I still intend to keep the number of products to a level where I can actually see some progress in the container so that I don’t have millions of products hanging around. Not that there aren’t a million products I want to try, I just want to be able to use the products instead of waste them. So I am trying to be selective about when I add new foundations to my dressing table to try. I added the No7 Lift & Luminate TRIPLE ACTION Serum because I noticed that while I have quite a large number of tinted moisturizers, I really don’t have a lot of actual foundations. Plus when I passed this on the shelf I looked, said “Oh that looks nice” and even though I wasn’t intending to buy foundation it magically ended up in my cart.
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Given how much I adore the No7 Perfect Light pressed powder, I knew it was only a matter of time before I branched out into other products and I am happy to try this foundation. According to the No 7 Website the No7 Lift & Luminate TRIPLE ACTION Serum
Formulated with the clinically proven anti-aging ingredients from our No7 Lift & Luminate TRIPLE ACTION Serum, this foundation instantly reduces the appearance of lines and wrinkles, skin looks firmer and appears more even. Skin is left with a radiant, more healthy-looking glow.
- Optical blurrers and light-reflecting particles instantly minimize the appearance of the signs of skin aging by reflecting light away from fine lines and wrinkles.
- Broad Spectrum SPF 15 protects skin from the aging effects of the sun.
- Flexible formula moves with skin and doesn’t migrate into fine lines and wrinkles
If you look at the ingredients list you will see that Caprylyl methicone is the second ingredient. Generally speaking if the second or third ingredient in your foundation ends in either cone or siloxane. Its a quick way to see if you are dealing with a water or silicone based foundation. I know some people try to avoid the silicone based foundations. Personally, I like both. The only thing to remember is that like goes with like. If you are going to use a silicone based foundation, then go with a silicone based primer. And if using a water based foundation, go with a water based primer.
While some can be mixed, the two products often separate from each other and that’s not really good for anyone. There are of course oil based products as well, in both foundations and primers. In general I find it best to avoid attempting to mix oil and water. If you’ve ever made salad dressing, you know, you can shake it all you want, the moment you stop, there will be some separation. While this has significantly less shaking, there is a separation.
I do have an oil based foundation that I like. I generally find that if I use a primer where the silicone element is really far down the list, meaning it is in small concentration, then it will usually be fine with an oil based foundation. I don’t think I actually know of an oil based primer. I might have to look into that.
But that is not now. Now is the time for the No 7 Lift and Luminate Triple Action Serum Foundation. With the name serum in the title, I thought it would be a thinner consistency. It is a thicker almost mousse like consistency when dispensed on the hand. While unexpected, I have to admit I really did like the way it blended into the skin. The thickness, spread out so I really needed only two pumps to achieve maximum coverage. The foundation felt weightless on my skin and played well with the primers I chose (i chose silicone based primers, but i used a different one each time I applied the foundation and I used primers I was familiar with). There was no issue with any of the primers.
I was very pleased with the way it applied. Now I do want to say something about the sunscreen element in the foundation. while I like having SPF in my foundation as a sort of extra bonus, I still wear sunscreen underneath it. The SPF 15 in this foundation is not a replacement for the Spf I apply at the end of my skincare routine. Not only is my sunscreen (favorite Prismatic Luminous Shield by Volition Beauty) SPF 50 but to get the full sunscreen protection in a foundation, you have to apply a lot of product to your face. If you want a really good visual representation of this I highly recommend checking out Wayne Goss’s Video: This is How much Foundation You Need Daily (if relying on the SPF in your foundation as sunscreen). It is not something you will soon forget.
The SPF in this foundation is a nice little bonus and I like it, but it is not something to rely on.
I would say this coverage falls right into my sweet spot of medium coverage. I like being able to see a few of my dominant freckles though the foundation. In fact I kind of freaks me out when i can’t. I think that is why I don’t really care for full coverage foundations. I lose some of the visual markers that make me feel like me.
This was a very good medium coverage foundation though. While blemishes, red and dark spots, were covered, I could still see some of my dominant freckles. But this foundation isn’t just about coverage. It is about covering those pesky fine lines. It is supposed to have a flexible formula that moves with the skin and doesn’t sink in and emphasize fine lines. I have to say i was very pleased with how it performed over the course of a day.
I took these pictures one of the days I wore the foundation. They were taken about twelve hours apart. Yes, my hair has been pulled back and the light is different as I took the first photo in natural light and the other after dark in my bathroom. But I think you can see that the foundation held up really well. Clearly it has worn down a bit as my freckles are more pronounced and I am a bit shinier.
While I didn’t powder my nose on this day, I did spend a lot of time with a mask on, so I’m not entirely certain the shine is just from normal wear or if the mask rubbed some of it off. Usually I do touch up my face with powder mid day, on this day I didn’t so there is extra shine and I was wearing a mask, and to top it off this was the day I wore the foundation for the longest. I know lots of foundations tout 36 hour coverage, but to be quite honest, I don’t usually wear my make up that long at a stretch. Generally if I am up for 36 hours strait it probably isn’t my makeup I’m worrying about.
Twelve hours was somewhat of a stretch for me as eight to occasionally ten is kind of my limit of foundation wear time. It was also why I chose this day to photograph as it was kind of an extreme wear test for me. Unless something extraordinarily unexpected happens, this is about the limit of time I would expect a foundation to work on me.
And to be honest, I am perfectly happy with the way this foundation wore during that twelve hours. There was some wear obviously, but lines were not emphasized and I still felt like I looked okay. I very much enjoyed the No 7 Lift and Luminate Triple Action Serum Foundation. I purchased it at Target for $15.99. I know that if you order from the No 7 Website, new customers can get 20% off their first purchase which kind of makes a good , affordable drug store option even more affordable. Plus right now they have an extra Fresh and Fabulous set (value $22) for those who spend $59 or more on the site. AND they are having a Friends and Family Sale which you might want to check out (I’ll put useful links below). In makeup, I highly recommend both my favorite Perfect Light pressed powder and this Lift and Luminate Triple Action Serum Foundation. I think this is a drug store option I am going to keep around for a while.
If you are someone who likes to know what you put on your face then fragrance is not your best friend – there's no way to know what’s really in it.
No7 lift luminate triple action reviews
Good old water, aka H2O. The most common skincare ingredient of all. You can usually find it right in the very first spot of the ingredient list, meaning it’s the biggest thing out of all the stuff that makes up the product.
It’s mainly a solvent for ingredients that do not like to dissolve in oils but rather in water.
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Once inside the skin, it hydrates, but not from the outside – putting pure water on the skin (hello long baths!) is drying.
One more thing: the water used in cosmetics is purified and deionized (it means that almost all of the mineral ions inside it is removed). Like this, the products can stay more stable over time.
Probably the most common silicone of all. It is a polymer (created from repeating subunits) molecule and has different molecular weight and thus different viscosity versions from water-light to thick liquid.
As for skincare, it makes the skin silky smooth, creates a subtle gloss and forms a protective barrier (aka occlusive). Also, works well to fill in fine lines and wrinkles and give skin a plump look (of course that is only temporary, but still, it's nice). There are also scar treatment gels out there using dimethicone as their base ingredient. It helps to soften scars and increase their elasticity.
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As for hair care, it is a non-volatile silicone meaning that it stays on the hair rather than evaporates from it and smoothes the hair like no other thing. Depending on your hair type, it can be a bit difficult to wash out and might cause some build-up (btw, this is not true to all silicones, only the non-volatile types).
Butylene glycol, or let’s just call it BG, is a multi-tasking colorless, syrupy liquid. It’s a great pick for creating a nice feeling product.
BG’s main job is usually to be a solvent for the other ingredients. Other tasks include helping the product to absorb faster and deeper into the skin (penetration enhancer), making the product spread nicely over the skin (slip agent), and attracting water (humectant) into the skin.
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It’s an ingredient whose safety hasn’t been questioned so far by anyone (at least not that we know about). BG is approved by Ecocert and is also used enthusiastically in natural products. BTW, it’s also a food additive.
- A natural moisturizer that’s also in our skin
- A super common, safe, effective and cheap molecule used for more than 50 years
- Not only a simple moisturizer but knows much more: keeps the skin lipids between our skin cells in a healthy (liquid crystal) state, protects against irritation, helps to restore barrier
- Effective from as low as 3% with even more benefits at higher concentrations up to 20-40% (around 10% is a good usability-effectiveness sweet spot)
- High-glycerin moisturizers are awesome for treating severely dry skin
A handy helper ingredient that comes in a white powder form and works as an anti-caking and oil-absorbing agent. It also gives products good spreadability, long lasting and velvet touch characteristics. It is popular both in skincare and makeup products.
An emollient ester with a rich and creamy but non-greasy skin feel. It makes skin supple and protects dry skin.
- It’s a polyhydroxy acid (PHA), that is often referred to as next generation AHA
- It gently lifts off dead skin cells form the skin surface making skin smooth and even
- In the long term it provides anti-aging benefits, like increased skin thickness and decreased wrinkles (though a tad less than even more proven superstar AHAs)
- It’s a great moisturizer and even helps to repair impaired skin barrier
- It’s antioxidant, and does not make your skin more sensitive to the sun
- It can be used even if your skin is very sensitive, rosacea prone or if you are post cosmetic procedure
A high-molecular-weight silicone elastomer (rubber-like elastic material) that is usually blended with a base silicone fluid (such as dimethicone or cyclopentasiloxane) to give the formula a silky smooth feel and to act as a thickening agent.
A kind of polymer (big molecule from repeated subunits) that helps to create beautiful gel-like textures. It's also a texturizer and thickener for oil-in-water emulsions. It gives products a good skin feel and does not make the formula tacky or sticky.
It works over a wide pH range and is used between 0.5-1.2%.
A very stable and promising form of the skincare superstar, Vitamin C. If you do not know why Vitamin C is such a big deal in skin care, you can catch up here. In short, Vitamin C has three proven magic abilities: antioxidant, collagen booster, and skin brightener. The problem, though, is that it's very unstable, turns brown and becomes ineffective in no time (after a few month) and the cosmetics industry is trying to come up with smart derivatives that are stable and have the magic properties of pure Vitamin C.
Ethyl Ascorbic Acid or EAC for short is an "etherified derivative of ascorbic acid" that consists of vitamin C and an ethyl group bound to the third carbon position. This makes Vitamin C very stable and soluble in both water and oil.
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However, for a Vitamin C derivative to work it's not enough just to be stable, they also have to be absorbed into the skin and be converted there to pure Vitamin C. We have good news regarding the absorption: on top of manufacturer claims, there is some data (animal study) demonstrating in can get into the skin, and it seems to be better at it than Ascorbyl Glucoside, another vitamin C derivative.
Regarding conversion, we can cite only a manufacturers claim saying that EAC is metabolized in the skin into pure ascorbic acid (and the ascorbic acid content of EAC is very high – 86,4% – compared to the usual 50-60% Vitamin C content of other derivatives).
As for the three magic abilities of Vitamin C, we again mostly have only the manufacturer's claims, but at least those are very promising. EAC seems to have both an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effect, and it's claimed to be able to boost the skin's collagen production. The strong point of EAC though is skin brightening. On top of manufacturer claims, there is also clinical in-vivo (tested on real people) data showing that 2% EAC can improve skin tone and whiten the skin.
Overall, Ethyl Ascorbic Acid is a very promising but not a fully proven Vitamin C derivative. It's worth a try, especially if you are after Vitamin C's skin-brightening effects.
It’s pretty much the current IT-preservative. It’s safe and gentle, but even more importantly, it’s not a feared-by-everyone-mostly-without-scientific-reason paraben.
It’s not something new: it was introduced around 1950 and today it can be used up to 1% worldwide. It can be found in nature – in green tea – but the version used in cosmetics is synthetic.
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Other than having a good safety profile and being quite gentle to the skin it has some other advantages too. It can be used in many types of formulations as it has great thermal stability (can be heated up to 85°C) and works on a wide range of pH levels (ph 3-10).
It’s often used together with ethylhexylglycerin as it nicely improves the preservative activity of phenoxyethanol.
It's a common little helper ingredient that helps water and oil to mix together. Also, it can help to increase the solubility of some other ingredients in the formula.
It's a very alkaline stuff that helps to set the pH of the cosmetic formula to be just right. It's similar to the more often used sodium hydroxide and pretty much the same of what we wrote there applies here too.
It's one of the most commonly used thickeners and emulsion stabilizers. If the product is too runny, a little xanthan gum will make it more gel-like. Used alone, it can make the formula sticky and it is a good team player so it is usually combined with other thickeners and so-called rheology modifiers (helper ingredients that adjust the flow and thus the feel of the formula). The typical use level of Xantha Gum is below 1%, it is usually in the 0.1-0.5% range.
Btw, Xanthan gum is all natural, a chain of sugar molecules (polysaccharide) produced from individual sugar molecules (glucose and sucrose) via fermentation. It’s approved by Ecocert and also used in the food industry (E415).
A multi-functional, silky feeling helper ingredient that can do quite many things. It's used as an emulsion stabilizer, solvent and a broad spectrum antimicrobial. According to manufacturer info, it's also a moisturizer and helps to make the product feel great on the skin. It works synergistically with preservatives and helps to improve water-resistance of sunscreens.
A thick, high molecular weight silicone that is usually diluted in another, lighter silicone fluid (like dimethicone or cyclopentasiloxane). The dimethiconol containing silicone blends leave a silky smooth, non-greasy film on the skin.
We don’t have description for this ingredient yet.
Exactly what it sounds: nice smelling stuff put into cosmetic products so that the end product also smells nice. Fragrance in the US and parfum in the EU is a generic term on the ingredient list that is made up of 30 to 50 chemicals on average (but it can have as much as 200 components!).
If you are someone who likes to know what you put on your face then fragrance is not your best friend – there's no way to know what’s really in it.
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Also, if your skin is sensitive, fragrance is again not your best friend. It’s the number one cause of contact allergy to cosmetics. It’s definitely a smart thing to avoid with sensitive skin (and fragrance of any type – natural is just as allergic as synthetic, if not worse!).
It’s the – sodium form – cousin of the famous NMF, hyaluronic acid (HA). If HA does not tell you anything we have a super detailed, geeky explanation about it here. The TL; DR version of HA is that it's a huge polymer (big molecule from repeated subunits) found in the skin that acts as a sponge helping the skin to hold onto water, being plump and elastic. HA is famous for its crazy water holding capacity as it can bind up to 1000 times its own weight in water.
As far as skincare goes, sodium hyaluronate and hyaluronic acid are pretty much the same and the two names are used interchangeably. As cosmetic chemist kindofstephen writes on reddit "sodium hyaluronate disassociates into hyaluronic acid molecule and a sodium atom in solution".
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In spite of this, if you search for "hyaluronic acid vs sodium hyaluronate" you will find on multiple places that sodium hyaluronate is smaller and can penetrate the skin better. Chemically, this is definitely not true, as the two forms are almost the same, both are polymers and the subunits can be repeated in both forms as much as you like. (We also checked Prospector for sodium hyaluronate versions actually used in cosmetic products and found that the most common molecular weight was 1.5-1.8 million Da that absolutely counts as high molecular weight).
What seems to be a true difference, though, is that the salt form is more stable, easier to formulate and cheaper so it pops up more often on the ingredient lists.
If you wanna become a real HA-and-the-skin expert you can read way more about the topic at hyaluronic acid (including penetration-questions, differences between high and low molecular weight versions and a bunch of references to scientific literature).
It's an ester form of vitamin A (retinol + palmitic acid) that belongs to the "retinoid family". The retinoid family is pretty much the royal family of skincare, with the queen being the FDA-approved anti-aging ingredient tretinoin. Retinol is also a very famous member of the family, but it's like Prince William, two steps away from the throne. Retinyl palmitate will be then little Prince George, quite far (3 steps) away from the throne.
By steps, we mean metabolic steps. Tretinoin, aka retinoic acid, is the active ingredient our skin cells can understand and retinyl palmitate (RP) has to be converted by our metabolic machinery to actually do something. The conversion is a 3 step one and looks like this:
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retinyl palmitate –> retinol — > retinaldehyde –> all-trans-retinoic acid
As we wrote in our lengthy retinol description the problem is that the conversion is not terribly effective. The evidence that RP is still an effective anti-aging ingredient is not very strong, in fact, it's weak. Dr. Leslie Baumann in her fantastic Cosmetic Dermatology book writes that RP is topically ineffective.
What's more, the anti-aging effectiveness is not the only questionable thing about RP. It also exibits questionable behaviour in the presence of UV light and was the center of a debate between the non-profit group, EWG (whose intentions are no doubt good, but its credibility is often questioned by scientists) and a group of scientists and dermatologists lead by Steven Q. Wang, MD, director of dermatologic surgery at Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre.
Dr. Leslie Baumann wrote a great review of the debate and summarized the research available about retinyl palmitate here. It seems that there is a study showing RP being photo protective against UVB rays but there is also a study showing RP causing DNA damage and cytotoxicity in association with UVA.
We think that the truth lies somewhere in the middle, and we agree with Dr. Baumann's conclusion: "sufficient evidence to establish a causal link between RP and skin cancer has not been produced. Nor, I’m afraid, are there any good reasons to recommend the use of RP". We would add especially during the day!
Bottom line: If you wanna get serious about retinoids, RP is not your ingredient (retinol or tretinoin is!). However, if you use a product that you like and it also contains RP, there is no reason to throw it away. If possible use it at night, just to be on the safe side.