Olay Niacinamide + AHA Moisturiser

I'm obsessed with skincare. I'm always looking for that next big thing - the thing that is going to maintain my youthful appearance. The thing that is going to make me comfortable in the skin I'm in, especially the skin on my face since that's the part everyone sees.

I wasn't blessed with perfect skin. I have some pigmentation and uneven tones. In the 7 or so weeks I was given to trial this product, I was pleasantly suprised to see an improvement in the tone of my skin. The pigmentation settled down and my skin looked more even - not a drastic omg wow change, but definitely a change that potentially using this product until the end might see more of an improvement overall. It moisturised pretty well too - kept my skin well hydrated during the day where usually I would tend to develop dry patches around the sides of my nose due to air conditioning as the day progressed.

Not an overpowering scent, you don't need to use a lot to moisturise your whole face, in fact, using this product, day and night, for the past 7 or so weeks, I'm not even half way through it

Will I use this again? Will I recommend this to a friend? I'm going to wait until I've used the whole product to make a decision - but the way things are going, this could be a new favourite.

I was looking forward to trying this product as I use Olay moisturizer and have combination skin. This product appealed to everything I was looking for! Both the moisturizer and the serum look great, far more modern than my old Olay moisturizer and smells very good. I don’t typically use fragranced products, and while I can’t tell exactly what the smell is it certainly is very pleasant. The cream absorbs well over the serum when used in conjunction. It’s a fairly thick cream I thought though you do only need a little bit. I have been using this product for 6 weeks to really give it a chance to see if there’s some improvements but I couldn’t really see anything discernable in terms of improvement. After using it for over a week I did notice that I had a breakout that was more than anything I would usually get and I can only attribute it to this new product, so it didn’t really do what I was hoping it would. My skin was hydrated but not any better than regular Olay moisturizer. It’s a lot to put on one’s skin, twice daily, particularly with the adding an SPF product during the day. The one thing to be careful of is that because of the AHA it can increase your skin’s sensitivity to sun and increase the risk of sunburn. I personally prefer to use just a moisturizer with built in SPF and find this to be enough for me.

BR accepted me to trial this cream with the serum. Amazing sounding claims. Niacinamide I was not familiar with so I read about it. Niacinamide helps keep skin hydrated preventing water loss, is much more effective than hyaluronic acid for an even skin tone/texture, not as effective as retinol but has less side effects. This cream felt a little greasy sometimes. Other days I seemed to have more dry skin so I would use a little more. Interestingly too much niacinamide causes whiteheads, blackheads, and blemishes. I gave my skin a day break or two from using one or both products because I did get a few white heads - this was on days where it found the cream too rich making my skin feel oily in areas. Right now I have both products on and my skin might be dehydrated as I have felt the need to use a little more. It also feels tight and ever so slightly irritated but nothing painful. At the start of this longer trial I was having one of the worst break outs of acne in a long time including cystic acne. I have PCOS so even as an adult I still have acne and have resorted to strong acne medicines that you need from a specialist doctor in the past. I can honestly say that my skin did get better. HOWEVER I did also take courses of antibiotics during this trial for unrelated sickness and I am mentioning this because I know that antibiotics can clear up skin. For some reason they have put niacinamide and AHA in the cream. Using those two things together is discouraged. On the box it also says formulated with vitamin C which also is not advised to be used together with AHAs or lactic acid. The reasons are that the chemicals can react resulting in irritated inflamed skin. Niacinamide used with AHAs together have no effect according to my research. The niacinamide has a pH of around 5-7, it can raise the lower pH of the acids, which is around 3-4, and cancel out its properties. Else where it said it was ok to layer them together but never to use AHAs with retinol. So in short this company is going against lots of studies and warnings out there. This is bold of Olay company and could be a selling point to suggest that they have new research. The packaging looks fancy with a silver lid but it is plastic. The jar has a white design that reminds me or an ocean shell. The products are made in Thailand. For the claims of "Reduces 5 years of stubborn spots in 4 weeks" I do not really agree. I have not noticed acne scars or dark spots fade but yes my skin has less acne. I stopped using my wrinkle fighting serum to use the serum and cream and sadly my wrinkles came back / were more visible. So, although this had AHA it is not a better antiaging wrinkle fighter product for me. Points given for the warning about how these products can increase your chances of sunburn damage. The cream did make my skin feel less dry and it was interesting using a product that has products in there that generally are not advised to be used together and learning about Niacinamide.

I already use products that include Niacinimide and AHAs, so I was really excited at the prospect of a moisturiser that combines them. The formulation of this product was really nice, the consistency was somewhere between a cream and a gel and it absorbed nicely into my skin and made it feel nice and plump. I didn't see any change in my hormonal acne on my chin however, and I wasn't a fan of the sweet scent. I also ran into a lot of issues with pilling - both under makeup and bare-faced. No matter how or when I applied it, it always ended up pilling by the afternoon. For that reason I probably wouldn't repurchase.

I love trying new products so I was excited when this arrived. While the scent and consistency of this moisturiser was nice I found it really didn't do much for my skin. I didn't notice much difference at all after 4 weeks and feel some of the other Olay products are definitely a better buy. My skin did feel nice after applying just doesn't look too much different after 4 weeks.