S5 Skincare Illuminating Serum Review

Oh dear! I almost forgot to review this product! I’ve featured in it this post: Beauteco Box August 2013 (now called Love Me Beauty) and The Starting Off Project: Skincare. So yes, I’ve had it for ages! I did (almost) finish it a month ago, but I left some for the purpose of this review! Yay! I did note down all the short-term effects though. I was going to skip over this review, but a few days ago some Googlers came across my blog by searching “S5 Skincare Review”, which gave me a reason to finally write this up.

My major skincare concern is obviously pigmentation from acne scarring, which is one of the main reasons for choosing Menu 1 Beauteco Box August 2013.

S5 Skincare Illuminating Serum (£14.60/10ml)

Product Description:

Key Ingredients: Alpine
Bioactives – a blend of 7 alpine plants proven to reduce the colour intensity of age spots and evens skin tone. Increase skin lighteness and reduce skin colour.  Biospecific exfoliator – this unique enzyme based active is sustainbly derived from salmon caviar hatching water. Clinically proven to enhance smoothness, reduce hyperpigmentation, decrease dullness and roughness. Tibetan
Kombuchka – known as the “long life mushroom”. Plumps and smoothes the skin. Marine Laminaria – protects against sun damage and electromagnetic radiation, reinforces the lipid barrier, neutralises uv stress, protects langerhans cells, stops the cycle of inflammation leading to ageing, reduces cellular uv damage.

(Smell): The smell is definitely my favourite thing about this serum. It’s very soothing, yet super fresh and a little bit sweet. I thought it smelled like a big piece of fresh and natural candy! Yeah, I was amazed by how 99.65% natural ingredients can give off this wonderful long-lasting smell. Haha. Fruity, green and aromatic on the fragrance wheel.

(Texture): The texture is very light and spreads easily, which is typical for a serum. The cool dispenser makes this Illuminate Serum look super cool and luxurious, but it does get a little tricky to get anything out when there’s only a tiny bit of serum left in the bottle.

(Result): A 10ml sample will only last a couple of weeks so it’s very difficult to judge the long term effects from this. The short term effect is that it absorbs nicely and makes my skin feel super smooth and well-nourished. After two weeks, the texture of my skin felt more even, but I can’t really tell if it helped to lighten my dark spots when I tested this a few months ago.

Overall, I think this product is super expensive, even for a sample-sized product! So I do recommend that you look out for them in beauty boxes, just so you don’t spend a lot of money on a sample and then find out that it’s not suitable for your skin.