With my over-40 skin, the surprises keep coming. I’ve still been noticing an increase in dryness, and more fine lines that seemed to have popped up in the past year. Since I’m between Botox and filler appointments, I’m getting desperate for anything that’ll make my skin look fresh and feeling its best. I want moisture, moisture, moisture, honey. My newest skin-care discovery? Shiseido Bio-Performance Skin Filler Serums ($295 for a two-pack), which promises to firm and plump the skin with a truly revolutionary innovation. Yes, it’s pricey. But yes, it’s very worth it.
How it works:
First thing’s first: the innovation behind is impressive, to say the least. Hyaluronic acid, the mega moisture-booster we all know and love, gets an epic makeover, thanks to Shiseido’s proprietary MolecuShift Technology. Typically, larger hyaluronic acid, or HA, molecules are too big to penetrate the skin and do their work on the skin’s surface, while smaller HA molecules can penetrate through to the epidermis, but bind less water than the big ones. Shiseido’s technology shrinks larger molecular weight HA so it gets down deep into the skin without losing benefits, then re-expands back to their original size. This is the first-ever technology to do that.
The molecular magic happens through a two-step system. At night you use the Infill Serum, which delivers the shrunken HA molecules into the skin. Then, in the AM, you use the Full Expansion Serum, which pumps the HA molecules back to the original size. Pure skin-care wizardry, if you ask me.
Actual filler plumps the skin from the inside out, hence the product’s name. This game-changing approach to hyaluronic acid is especially beneficial for those like me who are on the over-40 side. You know how we always hear that collagen and elastin decrease with age? Same thing with good ol’ HA. “Over time, your body’s natural stores of hyaluronic acid decline due to aging,” Dr. Ryan Turner, a board-certified dermatologist, told Well and Good previously.
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Other key ingredients include red clover extract for better skin barrier function, chai hu extract for firming benefits, and cinnamon extract to assist with the skin’s natural purification process.
My honest review
I found that the Shiseido Bio-Performance Skin Filler Serums were incredibly easy to use. There isn’t any fragrance, and the texture of both serums feel amazing, almost refreshing, on the skin. I used it for three weeks, and saw a difference FAST. My skin looked and felt juicier and looked plumper. Friends said I was glowing. Strangers demanded to know my skin-care routine. I was even asked for my ID (something that doesn’t happen THAT often anymore). While I didn’t get the same effect as using actual fillers, I do think this is great to use on its own and as an in-between-treatments product.
I mean, look at this GLOW.
I know some people might be turned off by the two-step process, but if you use a serum in the morning and evening, it’s basically the same thing. The price is definitely on the high end, but you are essentially paying for two products that are literally revolutionary.
This isn’t the same as buying one luxury moisturizer or night cream. All in all, this serum duo has changed everything I knew about what hyaluronic acid can really do for my skin, for the better.
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