De-eyedration for your wallet (Laura Mercier Eyedration Firming Eye Cream)

Member Name: Suzela

Product:	Laura Mercier Eyedration Firming Eye Cream
Date:	09/12/08 (251 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Moisturising and firming

Disadvantages: expensive and takes ages to dry

How much do you have to pay to get an eye cream that works? Well it isn't an easy one to answer because it depends what you want your eye cream to do. Do you want it to firm and get rid of those tell tale signs of aging (yes please!) or do you want it to hydrate and help prevent the tell tale signs of aging (again yes please with knobs on!). So to find a product that both firms and hydrates is always a bonus and what is even more of a bonus is when you find that product in the new skin care range that you are currently (well for the last few years) raving about. Yes I found what I hoped would be the answer to my eye cream dreams in Laura Mercier's skin care range and after being given a sample to try at a make over I was soon back to purchase a full size 14g frosted glass pot.

So what does it claim to do? Well very simply this eye cream aims to help provide protection against the elements and aging to the delicate under eye area (this isn't meant to be used on the eye lid) and reduce fine lines and wrinkles at the same time with the help of its active ingredients Vitamin A and C Sounds good so far. It has also been designed to aid the application of Laura Mercier's Secret Camouflage and Secret Concealer products so that you get the best results. Sounds good but the cynic in me sees this as a nice marketing tool. But as I own their concealer it is always worth a consumer test. It can be used by all skin types which is always good to know especially if you have sensitive skin and it is also opthalmologist and dermatologist tested.

I always like looking through the ingredients on this type of product to actually see if what you are applying has the potential to help or if it is just white cream in a pot and apart from the usual chemisty degree blurb there are quite a few natural extracts such as aloe vera, shea butter, cucumber, lavender, mulberry, licorice, grape seed, green tea, chamomile, sweet almond and wheat germ. All of these extracts are well known for their soothing, calming, moisturising and detoxifying qualities. So on the face of it this product has the makings of a potential winner in the eye cream stakes. But for this product to be successful it must be greater than the sum of its parts and this is where it lets itself down a bit.

You see I purchased this product after having a make over and being given a little pot to take home. After what I had been using previously the results were fantastic - the area under my eye looked hydrated, it looked smoother, well really it looked and felt better. By the time I purchased my full sized pot I had been using it a week and I was still in the throws of being grateful to the product for making me feel a bit better about an area I really worry about (I know I'm vain!). So any niggles that I may have had about the product were outweighed by the newness of it and also in the belief that the longer I used it the more used to it my skin would be, the more moisturised overall it would be and so all would even itself out. But I was wrong.

The pale cream coloured cream is quite light in texture but somehow still feels quite rich so although it absorbs quickly it also leaves a feeling that a product has been applied. This is great especially when I come to doing the "how easy is it to apply the Secret concealer over the top?" experiment. The simple answer is that the concealer glides on so you are not pulling at the delicate eye area when trying to smooth it out (I will give them that one on their "does the product do what it says on the pot?"). But it seems to take ages to "dry out" even though it has absorbed and quite often the concealer would look like it was bleeding away or would clog up a bit. And also you would have to wait a while to apply other powders because they just stick to the eye cream and you get clog ups that way. And if you don't wear the concealer your under eye area looks too "moist" and it takes a while for that look to subside. Basically if you wear make up then great as long as you have some time to wait for it to dry out properly before applying it. If you don't and you don't want to look like you have been crying wait a good 30 minutes before leaving the house which is a bit rubbish if you are in a rush (which is most of the time for me).

Don't get me wrong this is a lovely little cream texture wise and I would say I was about 75% happy with it. It does hydrate but perhaps a little too much and because it takes time to dry completely it makes it awkward when you don't have much time especially in the mornings. And when you have to watch out for the dreaded powder clog ups around the eyes you don't feel as comfortable with the product as perhaps you should. And also with creams like this you not only want to see immediate effects but also long term improvements. Remember this cream is meant to firm as well but in all honesty the moisturising effects seem to outweigh any firming qualities. Yes my fine lines appeared reduced almost immediately but was that because my skin was now hydrated or because the cream firmed my skin? I would air on the side of the hydration.

However even this hydration has its downside especially in cold weather. Because my skin can be a bit damp, if I go out quickly after using it the cold affects it more and ironically dries it out and can make it quite sore. So all the good work it does in the summer is wiped out.

Remember I asked you how much you had to pay to get an eye cream that worked? Well the answer still eludes me. This product, even though it lasts 6 months, is £30 (may be a little bit less now with the VAT reduction) and really even for me this is too much. I would pay more for a product if it ticked all the right boxes but this one only ticks 75% and then has extra marks knocked off for a few of the problems I have encountered with it. Of course it might be that perhaps my eyes weren't in as bad a condition as I feared and the product is too moisturising for me. It might be that this is the answer to someone elses eye cream dream. But for me it isn't quite good enough for me to justify buying another pot and so join me next time for my ongoing mission to find the right eye cream for me.

Summary: Lovely but there must be better