Before we get into how we do our face serum reviews, there’s something that I want to mention about skin care products in general.
Since all people have different body types, skin types, and overall chemical makeups, not all skin care products, and face serums in particular, will work exactly the same for all people.
One face serum may work great for me but not work at all for you (and vice versa).
Or one may make my skin look amazing but it has the opposite effect on you.
As you use and research facial serums, keep in mind there are an infinite number of variables that determine how well these things will work for different people!
Nonetheless, we’re going to tell you which products worked best for us—and which ones didn’t.
If you find a face serum that works great for you, wonderful! If not, don’t go all crazy on us, there are many others to try ?
Sometimes it takes some trial-and-error to find what works best for you and your unique skin type.
Also remember that all the opinions and reviews on this website are me and my friends’ personal opinions and observations. We don’t do double-blind clinical trials with tons of participants completed multiple stages over many years!
And we don’t use any fancy equipment—we do our reviews the old-fashioned way (by actually using them on our skin).
So now that we got that out of the way, let’s go over the exact process we follow with each new face serum we try…
Face Serum Reviews: The Process
When testing out a new product, we follow a detailed set of procedures to make sure that each and every product gets a fair trial.
To begin with, we actually go out and buy every product we test (we don’t accept FREE products from brands, companies or manufacturers).
We pride ourselves on personally testing out each and every serum that we review.
That’s quite different from what other so-called “review” sites out there do that don’t actually buy or test out the products they review. You’d be shocked to see how many of them actually do that!
So we form our opinions and ratings based on our specific criteria and not from the “marketing” information provided by manufacturers.
Anyway, once we get the facial serum, we use it based on how the label says to use it. That’s the only way to be fair!
While using each product, we keep notes on every aspect of what we experience, which includes the following…
What We Look For When Trying A New Facial Serum
Here are the 9 main criteria we use for our reviews:
- Texture/Feel: The first thing we look at is the texture and feel of that particular face serum. Is it thin and watery? Is it thick and creamy? Does it feel greasy, oily or just right?
- Application: Then we go over how easy or difficult the product is to use and what it’s like using that product.
- Drying Time: No one likes a skin care product that takes forever to dry and is sticky. So we’ll tell you about how long it took to dry and how it felt once it did.
- Smell: For many people, the smell of a face serum is EXTREMELY important. Especially if you’re putting it on your face right next to or on your nose!
- Immediate Results: We’ll tell you how our skin looked and felt within 24 hours of using that face serum.
- Longer Term Results: We’ll give you our opinion on how our skin looked and felt over a week or longer. Obviously, we can’t try each product for months, but you can get a good idea of how a face serum is going to work after using it for a few weeks.
- Ingredient Notes: We’ll take a look at the ingredients and tell you what we think. The range of ingredients found in face serums is vast, and some are much better than others.
- Price: How much does it cost? How much does that work out to per ounce/application? Is it cheap, average or pricey?
- Guarantee: Does the manufacturer offer a guarantee? If so, is it easy to use? How long is it for?
What The Overall Rating Means
After we’ve reviewed and tried a facial serum,we publish an overall opinion and assign a rating between 1 and 5, with 5 being the best.
Here’s what the rating means…
0-1.0 Stars: This product is terrible for the most part. It produced no or very little results. Further it had some combination of factors like an unpleasant feel, difficult application, produced no results, is a bad value, and/or offers no guarantee.
1.5-2.0 Stars: Not a great face serum but it may have a good thing or two going for it. It might be affordable or smell good.
2.5-3.0 Stars: An average product that will work OK for some people. Probably feels god on the skin and offers some positive results.
3.5-4.0 Stars: An above average serum that has a lot of good things about it. It more than likely produces good results, is easy to use, has quality ingredients and smells pleasant.
4.5-5.0 Stars: These are the best facial serums we’ve tried. We honestly think this product will work well for the majority of people who try it. It may not be the cheapest product on the market, but there’s a good chance it’ll be a be easy to use, smell good, have solid ingredients, produce immediate and lasting results, and offer some sort of guarantee.
Putting It All Together: How To Use Our Site To Find the Best Face Serum For YOU
After each new face serum we try and review, we update our current rankings.
Our list of the top 10 best face serums can be found here.
If a particular product doesn’t make it into our top 10, we still publish the review on our blog and film a YouTube video.
Here’s a list of every serum we’ve tried and reviewed.
Be sure to remember that we are constantly looking for new face serums to try. And we update everything on this site whenever it makes sense to do so.
To stay up-to-date on the latest in skincare and what we’re reviewing, be sure to check this website and our Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter accounts.
Lastly, if there’s a face serum you’d like us to review, let us know on Facebook or Twitter or send us an email to the address listed on our Contact Us page.
