Premium creams - what do you swear by?

[ElleintheWoods]

I’ve been using ‘medical’ skincare ranges all my life as got pointed that way by a doctor as a teen.

However I’m now thinking of switching up. I’m 35 and apparently have good skin for my age (said recently by a Botox specialist who refused to treat me as ‘I didn’t need it’) but I’d like more wrinkle prevention and suppleness/ softness now.

I’m thinking Elemis Pro Collagen range. La Mer is on my mind but I think it’s lost its edge a bit recently

What does everyone use?

I’d like some opinions before committing to something

I used to use Tret from Dermatica and stopped because it was so unpleasant. It smelled awful and felt nasty on my skin. So I get you, OP, you want something that feels nice!

I used a tretinoin cream from Skin & Me but had to stop it as it began stinging and itching.

I've used the tret from both skin+me and Dermatica and didn't get on with either. However I then tried Renew+ me (was And Begin) which was recommended on one of Nadine.Baggott's posts and which has all sorts of other stuff in it as well as moisturiser and is made for peri menopausal skin/40s, 50s. So much better and much less drying. I've got the retinol eye cream from there too and it's excellent. Not to sound too pleased with myself but I get a lot of compliments on my skin including from blokes so I'm assuming it makes a noticeable difference?

I used to work in advertising. So I’m wary about the high end brands as I feel you’re just paying for their advertising and marketing campaigns. So I never use Lancôme, Chanel etc.

They also own cheaper brands such as L’Oreal so you can get the same technology for a cheaper price.

I use Dermatica tret and Cerave.

The only thing I spend money on is serum. I tend to go for the ones that don’t advertise but you see in (good) cosmetic doctors. I like The IS clinical serum and their eye cream. Medik 8 is also good and Skinceuticals (I prefer IS clinical though).

Not sure if Tropic skincare counts as premium, their night cream is £48 a tube so it’s premium for me.

I’ve used all sorts of different good quality ones over the years, but this is the one that I feel really hydrates makes my face look and feel well cared for and smooth.

I now layer some niacinamide and hyaluronic acid alternately underneath from the ordinary brand, but in my opinion, you can’t beat Tropic, skincare creams and serums

I use the ZO medical range and it's brilliant. The anti ageing kit is a good place to start. You can buy a retinol from them or I use skin and me tret.

Can you cancel and pause Monderma same as you can with Dermatica? The latter has just prescribed me Tret 0.05% to start with, which I think is probably way too high so am thinking of cancelling that as it's made me lose a bit of faith. Purely cos I've heard you should start lower strength than that from nearly everybody.

Dermatica was tricky to use for me...it was too drying. I now use tret 0.05 by Renew and Me (was And Begin) which has moisturiser etc in for peri menopausal women so you can use it on its own without it removing the top layer of your skin or feeling dry. It's superior IMHO. I've used Dermatica.and Skin+Me but Renew and Me is the best so I've stuck with it. I think it's been recently taken over by Skin+Me but is definitely for age 45 onwards I'd say

Edit...apologies. I've just realised I've totally repeated my previous post which was ages ago so my bird brain memory cannot be expected to remember it as I can't even remember things that happened 5 minutes earlier.

Thank you. I hadn't seen your previous post, so all good lol.

@Cathymaker yes…you can pause or cancel Monderma. My experience though is that if you start on the right, low, prescription strength and work up (or not, depending on your skin issues)…great results come from this. NOT by thinking or being told that you can start on higher strength actives (that can always come later). Allow your skin a period of acclimatisation and you absolutely won’t need to pause treatment. I have nothing but praise for Monderma (my two daughters too!)

I've used expensive stuff for years and years, Skinceuticals serums at £120 per tiny bottle, Medik8, Sisley, etc. Then one day I thought what would happen if I tried cheaper. I swapped the Skinceuticals serum for one by Nip & Fab and... absolutely no difference. Except the new one is about £30 unless it's on offer.

That was a year ago and my skin still looks great. (I also have botox twice a year but that's it.)

I'm not dissing you for wanting expensive creams. I bought them for years. But magically different they are not.

Thank you. I'm going to give them a try to see if they come up with something more gradual than the Dermatica 0.05% starting point. Maybe they'll prescribe exactly the same strength, in which case I'll feel reassured. I actually thought I'd be happy starting high, but the more I've looked into Tretinoin, the more I think slow but sure is best way to go.

C.T. Magic Cream
(Ps. The dupe is terrible)

Environ Avst is very good, start with 1 and work up. Their eye cream is excellent too. Plus skingreidents retinol.

0.025% tret or even lower is still equally effective I think. It just takes longer.

Elemis Pro Collagen all the way here.
At the moment I'm using up all my stash from previous beauty boxes & the Liberty Advent calendar but the likes of Sunday Riley, Dr Sebagh, La Mer, Emma Hardie, REN, Origins, Kat Burki etc aren't giving me the same results as Elemis -my 'elevenses' have returned but I know that after a few weeks of using Elemis they'll almost disappear.

I know it's all probably down to the seaweed in Elemis Pro Collagen plumping my skin up but it bloody works!