With the Double Serum Clarins has created a bestselling product that promises a lot but fails to fully deliver, sadly.
Based on our real-world experience, we rate this serum. Its lightweight and lightly fragranced formula suit our oily, mature skin and it adds radiance.
This gives our skin a youthful appearance and from the design of the bottle to the adjustable dosage and consistency, the Double Serum feels like a luxury purchase.
In our hydration and smart mirror tests, the Double Serum noticeably improved the smoothness of our skin and it helped brighten our dark circles, yet our fine lines were worse after six weeks. Our pores weren’t diminished (as Clarins promised), and our wrinkles remained.
It may require a much longer testing period to make a difference, or it might be that the serum is designed to stem the tide of ageing, not reverse it. If this is the case, the scores are more admirable, but it’s unclear.
If the Clarins Double Serum was cheaper, we’d be willing to forego some of the cons to take advantage of the pros yet at £60 for 30ml, we just feel let down. It is a good serum for mature skin and if you can afford it, it’s worth a try. Just don’t expect miracles!
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| Sephora | From £60 |
| Boots | From £60 |
| Clarins | From £60 |
In our Clarins Double Serum review, we put the cult anti-ageing serum to the test using a smart mirror and skin hydration monitor to see if it’s as good as the brand claims
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How we tested Double Serum Clarins
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The Clarins Double Serum has long-held cult status among skincare aficionados.
It promises to brighten and clear the skin, reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles and even “diminish” pores.
For all of these benefits, Clarins charges an almost eye-watering £60 for 30ml – with prices rising to £104 for the largest bottle.
While Clarins is a well-respected, and trusted brand, this is a lot of money to spend if you don’t know whether or not the product works.
So, in a bid to discover if the Clarins Double Serum is worth the money and hype, we put it through a series of tests over a six-week period.
Keep scrolling to read our full Clarins Double Serum review and see the before and after smart mirror results, or use the links in the box to jump to the relevant sections.
And if you’re looking for serum and/or moisturiser recommendations, check out our best face serum and best moisturiser pages to see which products we’re loving.
There are two products in the Clarins Double Serum range – the Complete Age Control Concentrate serum, and the Double Serum Eye (£57). Both products get their name from the fact they contain two “phases” – a water-soluble, and oil-soluble phase – that need to be mixed together before being applied.
As the name suggests, the latter has been developed to be suitable for your eye area, while with the original Double Serum Clarins is targeting the entire face, neck, and chest area.
The Clarins Double Serum is available in three sizes: £60 for a 30ml bottle, £82 for 50ml, and £104 for 75ml. The bigger the bottle, the more money you save.
Its key ingredients include turmeric (which is an adaptogen and helps the skin cells ‘talk’ to each other to repair the skin barrier); avocado (good for skin regeneration and leaves it soft and supple); oat (firms the skin); banana (helps stimulate collagen); and Vitamin C (to brighten the skin and even skin tone.)
mamabella/Clarins An at-a-glance look at the Double Serum Clarins price, skin type and INCI Decoder scores
What is Clarins Double Serum? Clarins calls its Double Serum its “most powerful Complete Age Control Concentrate,” developed to tackle the signs of ageing. It contains 21 active plant extracts and promises to leave skin looking more radiant as well as firmer and smoother. It also claims to make pores appear reduced.
Clarins Double Serum price: £60 (30ml); £82 (50ml); £104 (75ml)
How to use Clarins Double Serum: After warming the serum in your hands, gently press it into your face, neck, and chest. Use after cleansing but before your moisturiser. Learn more in our How to layer skincare guide.
When to use Clarins Double Serum: It can be used AM, and/or PM. You can also mix the Double Serum with your foundation to add a dewy glow.
Who should use Clarins Double Serum? Suitable for all skin types but is particularly good for mature and ageing skin.
Where to buy: Clarins | Boots | Sephora
Clarins Double Serum alternatives: Boots Ingredients Vitamin C Serum (£6); Beauty Pie Youthbomb Radiance Concentrate (£44)
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Victoria Woollaston-Webber A 30ml bottle of Clarins Double Serum
For our Clarins Double Serum review, we applied a single pump every morning and a double pump every night for six weeks. You can read more about why it’s so important to test skincare for this period of time in our How we test skincare guide.
We applied it using the technique recommended by Clarins (see our how to use Clarins Double Serum section below) on freshly cleansed, damp skin.
In the morning, we then followed this with The Quick Flick sunscreen (£25) and the e.l.f Holy Hydration moisturiser (£12).
In the evening, we skipped the sunscreen but still followed with the e.l.f moisturiser.
Wearing SPF every day is important at the best of times but it’s especially important if you’re using the Clarins Double Serum because the serum contains a small amount of Vitamin C, plus an exfoliant called oat kernel.
Vitamin C can make your skin more susceptible to UV rays, and freshly exfoliated skin is also vulnerable.
FURTHER READING: How we test skincare to see if it lives up to its claims
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mamabella | mamabella A single dose (left) and a double dose (right) of the two phases in Clarins’ Double Serum.
As mentioned above, the Clarins Double Serum gets its name because the bottle contains water-soluble ingredients on one side and oil-soluble ingredients on the other. Also referred to as a hydric phase, and a lipidic phase. This gives the Double Serum a relatively thin consistency that’s slightly thicker than water but doesn’t feel greasy or heavy.
When you use the Double Serum’s pump, you get a dose of each phase in a single droplet. These phases then need to be combined and warmed up in the hands before being applied to the face, neck, and chest. This is said to make the serum more effective. It’s also what makes the Double Serum suitable for all skin types – including oily.
What’s more, you can control how much of the serum you use by twisting the top of the Double Serum pump. Choose between a small drop to maintain healthy skin, or switch to a larger drop when your skin is looking dull or in need of a boost.
Thanks to its fluid consistency, the Double Serum absorbs into the skin easily. This explains why you don’t need to massage it in and can simply press the serum into your skin. It immediately gives a dewy and refreshed look to the skin and when added to the foundation, brings a luminosity to the skin that doesn’t look shiny or oily. This is great for making maturing and ageing skin look more youthful.
The formula itself scores highly on the INCI Decoder database (see our Clarins Double Serum Ingredients section below to learn more about this database) and there is only one ingredient listed as “icky” – the use of perfume.
There are some great skincare staples in this formula – including glycerin, squalene, avocado oil, and Vitamin C and Vitamin E. Each one designed to boost the suppleness and appearance of the skin. Avena Sativa (Oat) Kernel Extract then acts as an antioxidant and exfoliant.
Vitamin E, also known as Tocopherol, is great at protecting the skin from free radicals but, depending on the amount and type used, studies have linked it with a mild risk of breakouts and irritation. This doesn’t mean the Double Serum will cause problems – and we’ve not experienced either issue on our acne-prone, sensitive skin – but it’s just worth noting.
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Clarins recommends using a three-step technique when applying its Double Serum.
It can be used morning and/or evening and is most effective when applied to a clean, cleansed face. You can then follow with moisturiser.
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From a personal viewpoint, we like this serum. Being able to control the amount used means that we know we’re being consistent with the application and that we’re not wasting any. The latter point being particularly important when you consider how much this serum costs.
It feels super lightweight on the skin and helps balance our oiliness without causing pores to be blocked, or aggravating our sensitive skin. We had expected a small amount of irritation due to the use of fragrance but it’s a very subtle perfume, and we never experienced any problems during the six weeks of use.
In our hydration test – you can read more about how we carry out and score products as part of this test on our best serum page – the Clarins Double Serum scored relatively poorly.
mamabella | mamabella The smart mirror image on the left shows our fine lines were at 6.35% before using the Clarins Double Serum, and increased to 14.02% six weeks later
It increased the hydration in our skin by 2.3 percentage points or 7.1% after five minutes. This then dropped by 2.9% after an hour leaving our skin less hydrated than before we started using the Double Serum. To put this into perspective, the average percentage increase across all the products we’ve tested to date is 14% meaning Clarins fell well below average.
To be fair to Clarins, it doesn’t claim that the Double Serum is overly hydrating. It does contain a number of humectants (ingredients that keep things moist) but it’s not one of the products’ selling points. It is also designed to be worn under moisturiser too, which would have helped lock in the moisture further.
In addition to the hydration test, we then used a smart mirror to analyse our skin before our Clarins Double Serum review, and after. The smart mirror analyses the appearance of pores, fine lines, and roughness and allows us to more objectively monitor how well the Double Serum worked. The before and after percentages for each skin concern are listed in the table below.
| Before | After | Difference | |
| Pores | 2.1% | 2.1% | 0.0% |
| Fine Lines | 6.4% | 14.0% | 7.7% |
| Roughness | 24.3% | 21.5% | -2.9% |
| Dark Circles | 12.3% | 7.3% | -5.0% |
For each score, the lower the number, the better. A negative percentage represents a decrease in skin concerns.
As the chart shows, the appearance of our pores remained the same before and after our Clarins Double Serum review. This goes against what Clarins claims, yet as you can read in our shrinking your pores guide, it’s not possible to minimise pores. So again, we’re giving Clarins the benefit of the doubt.
Our wrinkles remained the same, but the percentage of fine lines on our face more than doubled over the course of our six-week-long Double Serum review. This is extremely disappointing for a product that promises to tackle the signs of ageing. It’s impossible to know how much our fine lines would have increased over that time anyway, so it could be that the Double Serum stemmed the tide but we can’t know that for sure.
On the plus side, our skin was almost 3% smoother after testing the Double Serum for six weeks, and our dark circles were noticeably improved.
FURTHER READING: How to get rid of dark circles under eyes fast
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@victoria_woolly_web Meh. The pre-measured amount is too much for my hand but feels too little for my face. Either way, the hydration was lower after an hour than it was at the beginning – even despite using a lot 😑 it’s not sold for it’s hydrating properties though so this may be unfair #clarins #mamabella #doubleserum #clarinsdoubleserum #bestserum #bestserums #bestserumsforglowingskin ♬ Cool Kids (our sped up version) – Echosmith
With the Double Serum Clarins has created a bestselling product that promises a lot but fails to fully deliver, sadly.
Based on our real-world experience, we rate this serum. Its lightweight and lightly fragranced formula suit our oily, mature skin and it adds radiance.
This gives our skin a youthful appearance and from the design of the bottle to the adjustable dosage and consistency, the Double Serum feels like a luxury purchase.
In our hydration and smart mirror tests, the Double Serum noticeably improved the smoothness of our skin and it helped brighten our dark circles, yet our fine lines were worse after six weeks. Our pores weren’t diminished (as Clarins promised), and our wrinkles remained.
It may require a much longer testing period to make a difference, or it might be that the serum is designed to stem the tide of ageing, not reverse it. If this is the case, the scores are more admirable, but it’s unclear and go somewhat against Clarins’ claims.
If the Clarins Double Serum was cheaper, we’d be willing to forego some of the cons to take advantage of the pros. However, at £60 for 30ml, we just feel let down. It is a good serum for mature skin and if you can afford it, it’s worth a try. It did make a small impact, just don’t expect miracles.
Buy now from Sephora
mamabella | mamabella Since we published our Clarins Double Serum review, the brand launched the Clarins Double Serum Light Texture.
It is said to offer the same skincare benefits as the original Clarins Double Serum but now in a consistency that feels 50% lighter. This includes the same “dual biomimetic formula” as the original, which promises to reproduce the skin’s natural hydrolipidic.
It’s only currently available in a 50ml bottle, which means you’ll need to spend £82 to give this new serum a go – so we’ve done it for you!
The texture is lighter, or should we say runnier, but not massively so. It smells as strong as the original and it absorbs as well. One of the criticisms we’ve had of the original Clarins serum is that – despite the option to use a single or double pump – a single pump wasn’t enough to cover our face. And a double pump meant that we got through the bottle at twice the speed.
The runny nature of the Clarins Double Serum Light means that a single pump goes much further. Without having to sacrifice performance. We’ll be putting the Light Texture serum through more in-depth, longer-term tests over the next month or so and we’ll do a like-for-like comparison.
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Getty Images/iStockphoto Among the most abundant ingredients in the Clarins Double Serum are a bunch of emollients, largely used to give your skin a soft, silky feeling but also lock in moisture. These are joined by glycerin, and squalane – both humectants found naturally in the skin that help soak up moisture like a sponge and repair the moisture barrier.
Further down the list, there is a number of antioxidants and oils. Antioxidants help the skin better deal with pollution and other external “stressors” which can all add up to damage the skin barrier or prematurely age the skin.
These include Tocopheryl Acetate (Vitamin E), Oat Kernel Extract, Turmeric Root Extract, and Ascorbic Acid, also known as Vitamin C. Albeit the use of Vitamin C is in trace amounts towards the bottom of the list. The oils, which include Avocado Oil and Milk Thistle oil, help to nourish the skin without being too heavy for oily or acne-prone skin.
While the antioxidants work to prevent premature skin ageing, the Clarins Double Serum also contains citric acid. This acts as a chemical exfoliant and is an alpha-hydroxy acid that helps to buff away dead skin cells. This leaves the skin feeling smoother but also helps the other ingredients work deeper in the skin.
The rest of the formula is made up largely of preservatives and ingredients that help balance the pH level of the serum. There is also fragrance in this serum. In fact, it smells really strong and this won’t be to everyone’s taste. This could potentially irritate sensitive skin, although none of the ingredients individually have irritation ratings higher than 0-3 and the use of skin-soothing ingredients (avocado oil, oat extract) may help counteract this.
As with any skincare product, this will depend on your own skin type and we advise you to perform a patch test where possible. Especially if you are concerned and your skin does have a tendency to react. We also suggest you do the same if your skin is prone to breakouts.
The list of ingredients below is taken from the INCI Decoder website. The numbers represent an ingredient’s Irritation Rating (the number to the left of the comma), and Comedogenic Rating (to the right of the comma). Comedogenic products are more likely to clog your pores. Both ratings are scored out of five and the higher the number, the higher the chance of it causing irritation, or comedones (spots).
sii|h 0 0, Isononyl Isononanoate emo, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride emo, Pentylene Glycol solv|h, Ppg-3 Myristyl Ether emo, Ethylene/Propylene/Styrene Copolymer vc, Dipsacus Sylvestris Extract, Butylene Glycol h|solv 0 1, Parfum/ Fragrance 
perf, Phenoxyethanol pres, Propanediol solv|h, Tromethamine buff, Silybum Marianum Seed Oil 
emo, Carbomer vc 0 1, Tocopheryl Acetate aox 0 0, Escin, Chenopodium Quinoa Seed Extract, Ethylhexylglycerin pres, Squalane sii|emo 0 1, Avena Sativa (Oat) Kernel Extract aox|so|emo|abrasive/scrub, Theobroma Cacao (Cocoa) Extract, Butylene/Ethylene/Styrene Copolymer vc, Leontopodium Alpinum Extract, Xanthan Gum vc, Persea Gratissima (Avocado) Oil Unsaponifiables aox|so|emo, Caramel col, Curcuma Longa (Turmeric) Root Extract aox|so|sb|perf, Salicyloyl Phytosphingosine, Musa Sapientum (Banana) Fruit Extract, Salicornia Herbacea Extract aox|sb|h, Actinidia Chinensis (Kiwi) Fruit Extract emo, Kalanchoe Pinnata Leaf Extract, Sodium Benzoate pres, Citric Acid buff, Myrothamnus Flabellifolia Leaf/Stem Extract h, Disodium Edta chel, Tocopherol aox 0–3 0–3, Lycium Barbarum Fruit Extract, Maltodextrin, Orthosiphon Stamineus Extract, Hedychium Coronarium Root Extract, Mangifera Indica (Mango) Leaf Extract, Potassium Sorbate pres, Pentaerythrityl Tetra-Di-T-Butyl Hydroxyhydrocinnamate aox|pres, Jania Rubens Extract, Ascorbic Acid aox|sb|buff, Sodium Citrate chel|buff, Engelhardtia Chrysolepis Leaf Extract, Ci 14700/Red 4 col, Callicarpa Japonica Fruit ExtractHover the mouse / tap over an ingredient for short explanation. Read more on INCIDecoder.
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
