Review: Olay Regenerist Luminous Tone Perfecting Cream

(Disclaimer: I received this product for free from BzzAgent in exchange for my honest review.)

When I was invited to the “My Black is Beautiful” campaign on BzzAgent, I was pretty excited. Haircare, skincare, and personal care products? Count me in! Familiar with the brands, I knew that this would be a great, quality bzzkit. I was excited to get it and start trying everything out. Since I’d washed my hair the previous day, I knew that I would have to wait to use the shampoo, co-wash, and conditioner. I immediately started off with the Olay Regenerist Luminous Tone Perfecting Cream. Olay is a leader in skincare so I thought – anything that they put out will definitely deliver. After all, they know skincare… Right?

What Olay promises concerning the cream:

• Contains a hydrating formula with a Brightening Complex to deliver tone ingredients 10 layers deep into skin surface fading the look of dark spots over time
• Brightens, exfoliates and smoothes
• Regenerates skin’s appearance to help recapture healthy-looking, youthful luminosity

Sounds great! The bottle instructs you to smooth it evenly over your cleansed face and neck twice a day (morning & evening). I washed my face that evening and applied the cream after patting my skin dry. My first impression was the scent. While it is described as light, the fragrance is definitely not that. It is pretty strong and unpleasant, but I decided to ignore it. If using this would give me more luminous skin, I could look past the scent. When I woke up the next morning, the scent was still as strong and it was lingering on my pillowcase. The texture is not very thick, and the cream left a strange residue on my fingers after use. However, my skin felt velvety soft afterward!

When I wore it under my BB cream the next day, I could still smell the strong scent hours after I put it on. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror later that afternoon and my face looked pretty pale, unnaturally so. I asked my husband if he saw the same, and he did. Definitely not what you want a moisturizer to do. I’d also noticed that when I put it on, it would quickly flake on my skin and I’d have to brush off several white flakes of moisturizer. This happened no matter how much or how little I used. Because I wanted to be thorough with my experience of the product, I pushed through this problem as well.

Over the next few days, my skin started to break out & itch on my chin and my jawline, even drawing the attention of my husband. I started using this cream, hoping that I would reap the benefits of the promises that it claimed, but ended with regrets. Along with the breakouts would come a somewhat stinging sensation when I applied it on some days. Red flag.

I gave it 5 days, but decided to cease using it. While it made my skin feel soft, the breakouts were not welcome. With a price tag of over $20, I am glad that I did not purchase this. I would be pretty disappointed all around, especially since it comes from a company so highly regarded in the skincare & beauty industry.

Did it moisturize well? No. My skin was quite thirsty after putting on the cream. Was my tone perfected? I don’t have a lot of dark spots on my skin, so I can’t speak to that. Was my skin luminous? Not in a good way! While I am thankful for the opportunity to review it, I would not recommend this product. Maybe their other moisturizes are great, but for me, my experience was not a good one.