SkinActives Twilight Awakening Vitamin A Cream Review

SkinActives is certainly not a brand most of us are familiar with, which is why I decided to write this review. In addition to offering a wide range of skin care products, they provide their customers with a unique opportunity to DIY their own customized skin care – you just pick the ingredients from the list. SkinActives also functions as a private label manufacturer, so if launching your own skin care line was your lifelong dream, you might want to check them out.

I received a small jar of Twilight Awakening Vitamin A cream to try, and right off the bat I noticed that visually it looks different than other Vitamin A products I’ve tested. Most of them were white, while this one is yellow. Knowing that SkinActives doesn’t add unnecessary ingredients (like dyes) into their formulas it left me wondering what exactly makes other creams so white then. I think the yellow pigment probably comes from Niacinamide (vitamin B3), which actually works really well with some forms of Vitamin A.

Twilight Awakening contains several great “actives” that I’m personally a big fan of (you can find the full list of ingredients at the bottom of this post):

• Pomegranate oil – at one point I actually used pure pomegranate oil as a serum to get rid of laugh lines, and it completely erased a couple thin lines that were forming on my forehead after just one month of daily use. If you’re into more natural products, you should definitely give it a try, I think it’s one of the best anti-aging oils out there and it’s very affordable.
• Hyaluronic Acid – everyone knows that this acid is a great moisturizer, but not many realize that its main use in medicine is for injections to help lubricate the knees by increasing the viscosity of the synovial fluid. Regular injections may even reduce the need of joint replacement! In skincare it works as a sort of a transport to deliver active ingredients into the deeper layers of the skin. It then breaks down into enzymes and releases the “actives”. In this moisturizer it probably works to transport the vitamin A and the peptides to do their magic.
• Peptides (in this case Palmitoyl Pentapeptide-4 aka Matrixyl) – speaking of peptides, it is yet another miracle ingredient that seems to work really well for my skin. There are dozens of different types of peptides, but this one is by far the most famous of the bunch. Developed originally by Procter & Gamble, Palmitoyl Pentapeptide-4 is also known as Matrixyl (different from Matrixyl 3000), and you might have seen it advertised, at least I know I often heard the name on TV and saw it in magazines. Matrixyl aims to provide long-term anti-wrinkle results by stimulating collagen synthesis and skin repair. Earlier this year a research team led by Professor Ian Hamley from the University of Reading published a research proving that Matrixyl actually doubles the amount of the protein collagen needed to give skin its elasticity. So now I’m convinced that products containing Matrixyl or Palmitoyl Pentapeptide-4 definitely work, and I’m not just telling myself that to feel better 🙂
• Vitamin A (in this case Retinyl Acetate) – this is a gentler alternative to retin-A, so if you tried it and your skin got too sensitive, you might want to give this one a shot. I read some of the reviews online and I noticed that everyone noted the fact that it didn’t irritate their skin at all like other retinoid creams. EWG lists this ingredient as potentially hazardous, but based on my personal research (aka online lurking) it seems like it can be toxic only if used in very large quantities above the daily dose recommended by FDA.

The list above is only the top of the iceberg, because Twilight Awakening cream contains quite a few more great actives. I think we’re at a point where you all just want to know how this cream worked for me already, so I won’t bore you with my pseudo-scientific ramblings any longer 🙂

Initial thoughts:
On my first application I expected stinging of some sort, like it always happened with retinoid creams, but there was none of that. Nor did it happen on the second, or third, or fourth time etc… When I dipped my finger in the cream I could feel a few hard chunks in there, but when I spread it on my face I didn’t feel them at all, and I don’t really know what it was. The cream doesn’t smell like anything in the jar, but it kind of stinks when it oxidizes on my skin. It’s fairly lightweight, so it can be used for any skin type, but people with dry skin might need a thicker layer or layer it with a moisturizing serum or another cream for best results.

After two weeks:
I’ve been using this moisturizer every day at night for two weeks, and I think I’m seeing some positive changes. It’s clearly not an overnight miracle in a jar, but for me long-term results are more important anyway. The most noticeable improvement of all is the evened out complexion, I can clearly see that a few sun spots I had on my face are much lighter now. Another improvement is my skin’s overall firmness, it looks more supple and tight than before. This difference is seen the best in the neck and jaw area where the skin was a little “jiggly”, and now it looks like is just sticks better to the muscle.

And now to pros and cons…

Pros:

• Great list of actives
• No useless fillers (dyes, fragrance etc)
• Visible results
• Non-irritating
• Affordable price point ($30.00 for 4oz)

Cons:

• Jar packaging – increases the risk of cross-contamination and unnecessary product oxidation
• Smell of the oxidized product on the skin
• No SPF – if you plan to use this during the day, sun protection is a must! (I can’t stress this enough.) You should definitely layer some sunscreen on top to prevent skin damage.

The verdict: Overall, I liked this cream. It packs some very nice ingredients all in one jar, and they work well to produce visible results after just two weeks of use. My biggest concern is the jar packaging, because a lot of these active ingredients oxidize very easily, and of course because of the risk of cross-contamination. I would be interested in trying other SkinActives products, especially the Cleanser and Makeup Remover oil, it seems like the type of product I would enjoy using for gentle makeup removal.

SkinActives has some samples of their bestsellers available for sale, you can find them here if interested.

Connect with SkinActives on Facebook and Twitter for updates and special promotions and check out their website for a more extensive list of products and ingredients.

Product ingredients: Distilled Water, Jojoba (Simmondsia chinensis) Seed Oil, Lactobacillus/Kelp Ferment Filtrate, Niacinamide (Vitamin B3), Sorbitol, Butylene Glycol, Cetyl Alcohol, Glyceryl Stearate, PEG-100 Stearate, Stearyl Alcohol, Sesame (Sesamum Indicum) Seed Oil, Sweet Almond (Prunus amygdalus dulcis) Seed Oil, Avocado (Persea gratissima) Oil, Allantoin, Hydrolyzed Collagen, Retinyl Acetate (Vitamin A), Carnosine (L-), Hyaluronic Acid, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Fruit Juice (Endosperm), Tetrahydrocurcuminoids (Tetrahydrodiferuloylmethane, Tetrahydrodemethoxydiferuloylmethane,  Tetrahydrobisdemethoxydiferuloylmethane), Pomegranate (Punica granatum) Seed Oil, Tocotrienols, Tocopherol (Alpha-D-Tocopherol, Vitamin E), Astaxanthin, Lycopene, Xanthophyll (Lutein), Alpha Lipoic Acid [R-(+)-], Beta Carotene,  Palmitoyl Pentapeptide-4 (Pal-Lys-Ths-Ths-Lys-Ser-OH), Polysorbate 20, Citric Acid, Dimethicone, Carbomer, Triethanolamine, Diazolidinyl Urea, Phenoxyethanol, Methylparaben, Propylparaben.

Have you heard of SkinActives before? Do you have any experience with Vitamin A (retinoid) products?