If redness, dark circles, and hydration levels are particular concerns then we highly recommend the Charlotte Tilbury serum. A little goes a long way and there was a noticeable improvement in our skin over the four-week testing period.
However, it’s not a wonder drug. It’s not a catch-all solution for ageing skin and will not work miracles which, given the price and marketing, we were led to believe it does.
If you can live with that, this serum is worth the investment and we think it’s particularly great for mature skin. The only thing we’d suggest is don’t get sucked into the hype or you may feel let down.
| Charlotte Tilbury | £26 (8ml) or £63 (30ml) |
| Cult Beauty | £26 (8ml) or £63 (30ml) |
| SpaceNK | £26 (8ml) or £60 (30ml) |
In our Charlotte Tilbury serum review, we put the Crystal Elixir’s Magic Serum through a series of real-world, smart mirror tests to see if it’s worth the high price
Despite being renowned across the world for her makeup line, Charlotte Tilbury has been gradually becoming a skincare giant, too. A line that is now full of cleansers, face masks and one of her earliest forays into the skincare market – the Charlotte Tilbury Magic Serum Crystal Elixir.
We recently spent four weeks using the serum as instructed, every day and night, in order to make this Magic Serum Crystal Elixir review as accurate as possible. To not only reveal if the new serum lives up to the hype but if it’s worth the £60 price. Unfortunately, in many ways, it’s not.
Read on to discover the results of our real-world smart mirror tests in our Charlotte Tilbury Serum review.
What is the Charlotte Tilbury Magic Serum?: The Charlotte Tilbury Magic Serum forms part of the wider Magic skincare collection and is designed to be used as part of your skincare regime between your toner and moisturiser. It promises hydrated, firmer, brighter and more youthful-looking skin via a 20% concentration of ingredients within a water-based formula.
Charlotte Tilbury Magic Serum price: The Charlotte Tilbury serum costs £63 for 30ml, although you can also buy an 8ml pot for £25.
Charlotte Tilbury Magic Serum alternatives: The serum is on par, price- and promise-wise, with the Clarins Double Serum and Estée Lauder’s Advanced Night Repair Serum.
FURTHER READING: What is serum? | Clarins Double Serum review: Smart mirror reveals before and after results
Buy now from Charlotte Tilbury
For all of our skincare reviews, we take a two-pronged approach. We note down how we think our skin looks and feels before attempting to quantify the results using a smart mirror.
We use the HiMirror, alongside the HiSkin analyser, to plot changes in our skin’s pigmentation, hydration, dark spots, red spots, roughness, pores, wrinkles and fine lines.
We then compare how we felt about our skin with the percentage changes from the smart mirror to get a greater, all-around picture of what the product is actually like. You can read more about this methodology in our How we test skincare explainer.
Buy now from Charlotte Tilbury
The Charlotte Tilbury serum comes in a glass bottle, with the brand’s iconic rose gold metal lid with a white, silicon pipette. This packaging makes it feel luxurious and the bottle looks great on our bathroom side.
The first thing we noticed about the serum itself was its colour. Whereas many of the best face serums are clear or err towards yellow/copper tones, Charlotte Tilbury’s Magic Serum Crystal Elixir is cream with a slight shimmer. It’s like a runnier version of Charlotte’s Brightening Youth Glow primer.
Consistency-wise, the Crystal Elixir isn’t as runny as other serums we’ve used, but that’s not to say it’s thick. It manages to combine the best of cream moisturisers and serums in a liquid that absorbs into the skin quickly with minimal massaging.
As a result, this consistency and quick absorption mean you only need to use the bare minimum – we can cover our entire face and neck with just four drops. This means that while it’s an expensive product, a little goes a very long way so it should last you a while.
The pipette also gives you better control over how much you’re using, unlike the single or double dose served by the Clarins Double Serum, as an example.
Both aspects combine to make Charlotte Tilbury’s serum relatively good value for money. We bought the 30ml bottle and have used it every morning and night for at least four weeks and we’re not even halfway through.
Buy now from Charlotte Tilbury
Charlotte Tilbury The Charlotte Tilbury serum contains a number of ingredients we hadn’t heard of before, as well as skincare staples, including:
The brand describes it as “a potent serum masterfully formulated with the transformative power of state-of-the-art ingredients extracted from the heart of mother nature and the latest lab innovations in skin science.”
During user trials, in which Charlotte’s Magic Serum Crystal Elixir was tested on 209 women and men aged 18-80 over four weeks, the brand claims 93% agreed their skin looked younger, 97% said their skin felt hydrated, 91% believed their wrinkles appeared reduced and 94% agreed their skin looked and felt firmer.
In a separate clinical study, the results of the Magic Serum Crystal Elixir were observed in tests on 31 women and men aged 18-80 over eight weeks.
This study found a significant increase in hydration after an hour, 43% less water loss from the skin, and reduced pores.
Elsewhere, skin in these clinical tests appeared more elastic by 122%, and firmer by 49%.
In particular, the use of 0.75% concentration found in this serum is said to be the highest recommended level for skincare and “helps to significantly increase hydration of the skin by 172% after 1 hour.”
Learn more at Charlotte Tilbury
Mamabella
While the results of the Charlotte Tilbury serum, among the very small sample of people who tested it, our results were more varied.
Our skin felt more hydrated immediately after use, which we could say for almost any skincare we use, but the effect did last hours.
We’d also wake up with more of a noticeable glow to our skin after using it before bed.
Overall, our skin did appear plumper but we didn’t notice any visible improvements in the appearance of our wrinkles, fine lines or pores.
The Charlotte Tilbury serum was the only product we changed in our skincare routine during our testing period so we can anecdotally connect these results to the serum.
What’s more, these subjective results lined up well with the more objective scores we got from the smart mirror and skin analyser.
Hydration levels rose significantly.
Between mid-April until mid-May, our skin’s hydration went from “Normal” to “Well-hydrated”, rising from a Level 3 to a Level 4 on the hydration scale (this scale is measured out of 5).
The below charts show the difference with the red dot being the selected date.
Mamabella The exact percentage and score changes from the smart mirror are shown in the table below but in summary, the Charlotte Tilbury Magic Serum Crystal Elixir improved the texture and roughness of our skin taking it from Good to Excellent.
It had a similar impact on the appearance of dark circles and improved the redness in our skin.
This is a particular concern of ours so we were really pleased, and we’d attribute this largely to the fact that the Charlotte Tilbury serum was the first and only skincare product in our routine to contain niacinamide.
It made a marginal improvement to our pores, but, as you can see in the table, the three skin concerns we had expected this serum to have the most impact on – dark spots, wrinkles and fine lines – got worse.
| Charlotte Tilbury Serum | |||||
| Before % | After % | Before rank | After rank | Difference | |
| Dark circles | 13 | 8.5 | Fair | Average | 4.5 |
| Red spots | 3.61 | 1.82 | Average | Good | 1.79 |
| Pores | 2.17 | 2.13 | Fair | Fair | 0.04 |
| Dark spots | 2.34 | 3.16 | Poor | Poor | -0.82 |
| Wrinkles | 0.12 | 0.4 | Excellent | Average | -0.28 |
| Fine Lines | 4.28 | 7.98 | Fair | Poor | -3.7 |
| Roughness | 17.82 | 10.41 | Good | Excellent | 7.41 |
The higher the percentage, the more of your face is covered in dark spots, pores, roughness etc.
The biggest issue we have with the Charlotte Tilbury Magic Serum Crystal Elixir is that it has been so over-marketed that we had extremely high expectations.
We love Charlotte Tilbury’s Magic Cream, so when this serum didn’t deliver in the same way, we felt let down.
Granted, when it comes to dark spots the change is relatively small but during the four weeks of using the Charlotte Tilbury serum, our wrinkles score went from Excellent to Average.
In fairness to Charlotte Tilbury, we have no idea how our wrinkles and fine lines would have increased in the four weeks if we hadn’t used the serum; the difference between the scores could have been much higher.
Plus, we are four weeks older, so our skin is four weeks older and we’d expect a minor difference. You can read more about skin ageing in our How your skin changes in each decade of your life – and what to do about it guide.
As a result, we hadn’t entered into this Charlotte Tilbury serum review expecting our wrinkles and fine lines to drastically improve, despite the marketing claims to the contrary. Mainly because we’re both cynical and realistic. Yet we are disappointed that the serum didn’t at least stem the tide. Especially at this price.
If redness, dark circles and hydration levels, especially if you have oily skin, are particular concerns then we highly recommend the Charlotte Tilbury serum, because a little goes a long way. The water-based formula is gentle enough for our sensitive skin, too.
You can buy a smaller 8ml version for £25 so at the very least, you could give this serum a go without shelling out the full whack.
However, this is not a wonder drug. It’s not a catch-all solution for ageing skin and will not work miracles so if you can live with that, this serum is worth the investment. Just don’t believe the hype.
FURTHER READING: The science of serums: What is serum and what does serum do?
Buy now from Charlotte Tilbury
Victoria is founder and editor-in-chief of mamabella, freelance journalist and Mum. She has a passion for empowering people to feel beautiful whatever their age, size, skin type and budget
