THE INKEY LIST | HYALURONIC ACID SERUM

This review was originally part of my blog article titled, My Favorite Humectant Serums From Paula's Choice, The Inkey List, Ghost Democracy and More! You can catch the full piece here.

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Throughout the colder months between October and March, I really struggle with keeping my skin from becoming dry and dehydrated.

In November, I kicked off the annual dry skin season with a pair of articles on the best face creams for dry skin and all skin types in the cold, leading with a piece titled, Winter Moisturizers Part I – Some of the Best Face Creams for Dry Skin and All Skin Types in Cold Weather. A week later, I rounded out my list of the best dry skin moisturizers in Winter Moisturizers Part 2 — available to read here.

In mid-December, I followed those up with a piece on my favorite hydrating face mists titled, Favorite Face Mists For Keeping Skin Hydrated In The Cold – Best Face Mists, Best Hydrating Toners For Dry, Dehydrated Skin.

Richer face creams and hydrating mists are indispensable, essentials in every winter skincare routine. And, at least with the moisturizers, are fairly common. But the one true essential for maintaining skin health in the harsh cold months is a really good humectant product, usually a Hyaluronic Acid serum.

While Hyaluronic Acid is far and away the most popular and most sought-after of humectants, it is by no means the only one. Humectant ingredients that are also effective at preventing trans-epidermal water loss and subsequent dehydration include: Beta Glucan, Butylene Glycol, Centella Asiatica, Polyglutamic Acid, Glycerin, Aloe Vera, Snow Mushroom and even seaweed.

I think it’s just that Hyaluronic Acid was the new, sexy humectant popularized in one-note serums — treatments focused on a single potent active ingredient. Brands like Deciem’s The Ordinary and The Inkey List were founded on ingredient education and super affordable one-note serums. Among the most sought after are The Ordinary’s $6 Niacinamide 10% + Zinc 1% and the $8 Hyaluronic Acid Serum from The Inkey List — which I include in the line-up below.

Maintaining proper hydration levels year-round is essential if skin is going to function at its peak. Healthy functioning skin is better able to defend against external aggressors like pollution, UV, and free radical attacks. And healthy skin is better fortified against aging. So while it may seem slick to say that a humectant serum that helps keep skin hydrated is an effective anti-aging product, it’s not really a stretch at all.

Dry, dehydrated skin is certainly unhealthy; it can’t behave as it should. You may be asking yourself, as I once did, what the difference is between dry skin and dehydrated skin. Well, permit me to explore those differences.

What’s the difference between dry skin and dehydrated skin?

For the answer to that vexing questing, as I most often do, I turned to the experts on the Paula’s Choice Research Team for insights. There’s a superb piece on the Paula’s Choice site titled, What is Dehydrated Skin & How to Choose the Best Products. Here is an excerpt:

Dehydrated skin often looks and feels like dry skin all over your face, but there's a major difference between the two: dehydrated skin is usually a temporary concern (with various surprising causes) and dry skin typically doesn't change over time. If you have dehydrated skin, your skin may also produce a normal or even excessive amount of oil on its surface.
"Dehydrated skin" is something we’re asked about frequently. It seems there’s a lot of confusion about what this skin concern is about. A major part of the confusion is that the term "dehydrated skin" is often used interchangeably with "dry skin" or "combination skin" but they are not the same! Dehydrated skin can occur in all skin types and is not exclusive to those with dry skin or combination skin.
The Difference Between Dry Skin and Dehydrated Skin
Having classically dry skin is easy to recognize. Dry skin frequently feels tight and dry, with no oil anywhere to be seen. This situation rarely fluctuates; skin feels dry all year long. The dryness might get worse depending on the climate, season, or activity, but regardless of those things, without great skin care products, the uncomfortable dry, tight feeling will persist.
As mentioned above, dehydrated skin can look and feel similar, but there’s a major difference: Dehydrated skin tends to come and go, it does not persist.

With that, let’s take a look at a few of the best humectant serums for keeping skin optimally hydrated day after day…

Ghost Democracy | Floodgate Hyaluronic Acid Serum

A Hyaluronic Acid or other humectant serum is essential to every healthy skincare routine. But that doesn’t mean it needs to be one of the priciest products in your regimen. As I’ve said many times before, I appreciate what brands like Good Molecules, The Ordinary and The Inkey List have done to make great skincare products accessible to everyone. There’s perhaps no better example of this than with Hyaluronic Acid.

Hyaluronic Acid is one of the least expensive and most effective actives and it’s indispensable to the health of your skin.

If you have the means and the desire, I’d certainly recommend a more well-rounded serum like the Paula’s Choice Hyaluronic Acid Booster — which delivers additional anti-aging benefits beyond a simple humectant effect.

But if you’re more interested in an affordable, one-note serum, at just $7.99, The Inkey List’s Hyaluronic Acid Serum is a terrific option. It’s an effective humectant serum with just a touch of additional anti-aging benefits to it. As with all cheaper forms of Hyaluronic Acid, Inkey’s Hyaluronic Acid Serum is a thicker, pulpier treatment.

Inkey’s Hyaluronic Acid is a clean, simple serum with an approximate 2% concentration of multi-molecular Hyaluronic Acid, including Sodium Hyaluronate — the salt form of HA that’s more skin-compatible.

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What is hyaluronic acid for skin?

I recently found an excellent albeit wonky article on Hyaluronic Acid titled, Why Science Says Hyaluronic Acid Is the Holy Grail to Wrinkle-Free, Youthful Hydration.

This bit stood out to me, in particular:

“The benefits of hyaluronic acid on the skin has to do with its molecular weight and concentration. In this case, size matters! The molecular weight refers to its mass, or how big the HA molecule is. This is measured in something called unified atomic mass units — daltons, or kDa for short.
HA between 50 to 1,000 kDa is the most beneficial for skin, with about 130 kDa being the best, according to the most recent human studies. Anything higher won't make too much of a difference. Anything lower might cause inflammation. How did we get this number? When you look at studies, you'll see a pattern, but one of the most thorough studies looked at HA with different molecular weights, including 50, 130, 300, 800, and 2,000 kDa.
After one month, they found that treatment with 130 kDa HA was the most effective, increasing skin elasticity by 20 percent. Both the 50 and 130 kDa groups had significant improvement in wrinkle-depth and skin roughness after 60 days. All the other molecular weights still improved elasticity and skin hydration, just less so. You can read more about this molecular weight analysis from the original breakdown here.”

With just seven ingredients in the INCI, The Inkey List Hyaluronic Acid Serum is not entirely a stripped down product. There’s a bit more anti-aging oomph to it than expected with the inclusion of a small amount of Matrixyl 3000 — a common dual peptide complex that helps support skin’s natural collagen production.

There’s also a bit of nourishing Radish Root Ferment Filtrate, which I wish replaced the water in the formula. That would elevate the treatment and pro-skin health benefits a bit more.

SHOP THE BLOG: Purchase The Inkey List Hyaluronic Acid Serum for $7.99 here.

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