Olay Regenerist promises a lot and at £34 it can seem like a gamble to spend that much on a cream. However, in our experience, it’s a gamble worth taking.
The cream isn’t perfect – its consistency can feel a little heavy, especially on oily skin. It doesn’t appear to hydrate as well as the brand claims and we experienced redness and small breakouts in the first couple of days.
Yet, we can’t argue with the smart mirror results.
Almost every skin concern improved during the six-week period. We had noticed our skin looked smoother and more glowy, particularly around the deeper wrinkles on our forehead, and we thought we generally just looked more youthful. The smart mirror then confirmed this.
The early redness subsided and using the cream actually resulted in our red spots improving drastically. Wrinkles were significantly reduced, as were roughness and the appearance of our pores. In just six weeks.
We’re not sure you can ever truly warrant spending £34 on a cream but, in our experience, at least you’re getting what you pay for with the Olay Regenerist.
| Boots | £34 |
| Amazon | £34 |
| Ocado | £34 |
In our Olay Regenerist review, we put the flagship anti-ageing cream to the test to see if it lives up to its reputation and price
Olay – formerly Oily of Olay – has been a skincare staple for decades.
It became a firm household favourite, especially among older women, with its original beauty fluid and has since evolved to be a premium skincare brand.
It’s still very much known for its anti-ageing focus but it now caters to a range of ages, skincare concerns, and budgets.
We’ve previously explained the difference between all of the Olay creams and which collections suit which skin types in our What do all the Olay creams do? guide.
In this Olay Regenerist review, we not only put the night cream to the test over a six-week period.
This includes putting it through our hydration tests and tracking its performance using our smart mirror to make sure to give you an informed and detailed viewpoint.
Read on to find out if the iconic cream lives up to its reputation and does the Olay brand proud, or feels like a disappointment.
There are multiple creams and lotions under the Olay Regenerist brand.
The product tested for this Olay Regenerist review was the Night Cream, officially known as the Olay Regenerist 3-Point Firming Anti-Ageing Moisturiser.
As the name suggests, this cream is designed to be used at night; working its magic while you sleep and as your cells regenerate and renew.
mamabella | mamabella The Olay Regenerist range gets its name from the fact it helps your cells regenerate and create smooth, glowing, and firmer skin
What is Olay Regenerist? The Olay Regenerist range gets its name from the fact it helps your cells regenerate and create smooth, glowing, and firmer skin. Its formula “penetrates up to 10 layers deep into the skin surface” in order to fix the skin from within You can find out more about this in our Olay Regenerist Formula section below. We also explain more about the wider Olay Regenerist brand and who each product is best suited to in our Which Olay Regenerist cream do I need?
Olay Regenerist price: £34
How to use Olay Regenerist: Olay Regenerist Night Cream should be used on freshly cleansed skin, after serums and other targeted treatments. Smooth the night cream over your face, neck, and chest and massage in.
When to use Olay Regenerist: At night as the final step of your skincare routine before bed.
Who should use Olay Regenerist? The Olay Regenerist Night Cream has been formulated for all skin types – normal, dry, and oily – but is particularly good for mature skin due to its firming and anti-ageing properties.
Where to buy: Boots | Ocado | Amazon
Olay Regenerist alternatives: Cien 24H Moisturising Cream (£15); e.l.f Holy Hydration (£12)
WANT TO KNOW MORE? Best BB cream | Best moisturiser | Best tinted moisturiser | Best toner | Best primer | Best cleanser| Best eye cream| Best anti-ageing cream | Best hand cream| Best foot cream | Best face mask | Best face exfoliator | Best face oil| Best serum| Best night cream | Best SPF | Best Vitamin C serum | Men’s skincare routine| Best stretch mark cream| Skincare alternatives UK | How to get free skincare samples
For our Olay Regenerist review, we used it as our nightly moisturiser for six weeks. You can read more about the methodology behind our testing process in the How we test skincare to see if it lives up to its claims guide.
We double-cleansed our face as normal, applied the Clinique Moisture Surge spray before applying the Olay Regenerist as the final step in our skincare routine. Three times a week we also applied The Ordinary’s Retinol and Squalene serum before the Olay Night Cream.
Once a week we used a moisture meter to test the hydration levels of our skin and took average readings over six weeks to discover how hydrating the cream is. We also analysed our skin using a smart mirror at the start of the test, and at the same time of day and week at the end of the six-week test.
FURTHER READING: How we test skincare to see if it lives up to its claims
Buy now from Boots
mamabella | mamabella The Olay Regenerist has a medium-to-thick consistency that glides easily across the skin without feeling too tacky
Night creams have a tendency to be thicker than day creams because they’re designed to provide intense hydration and nourishment as you sleep. The Olay Regenerist is no exception. It has a medium-to-thick consistency that glides easily across the skin without feeling too tacky.
You only need to use a small amount to cover your face and neck and as soon as it warms up in your hands, or on your face, it almost melts – in a good way – into the skin.
To give the skincare benefits that Olay promises, the Regenerist night cream contains glycerin and hyaluronic acid – two hydration heroes. These two ingredients are what’s known as ‘skin-identical’ because they’re both found naturally in our skin. They’re also humectants – a term used for ingredients that help to retain water and moisture.
Regenerist also contains niacinamide. Not only does niacinamide help even out skin tone and fade brown spots and pigmentation, but it can also help balance sebum (which in turn can help with acne), and is soothing and calming for conditions such as rosacea. The addition of Vitamin E, and allantoin both add to this soothing, protective formula.
Further down the ingredients list is citric acid. This is a form of something known as an alpha-hydroxy acid – or AHA – and works to buff the skin and get rid of dead skin cells.
mamabella | mamabella You only need to use a small amount of the Olay Regenerist to cover your face and neck and as soon as it warms up in your hands, or on your face, it almost melts – in a good way – into the skin
There is a so-called “icky” ingredient in the Olay Regenerist cream known as DMDM Hydantoin. It’s a preservative used to keep the cream stable and stop bacteria from forming, however, it’s considered icky because, at certain concentrations, it can release formaldehyde. The amount contained in Olay Regenerist has been considered safe to use but it’s worth noting. Especially if you happen to have an allergic reaction to the cream.
Similarly, Olay Regenerist contains Laureth-4 which is another potentially controversial ingredient. It’s derived from lauryl alcohol, which comes from lauric acid found in palm kernel oil or coconut oil. Depending on how it’s made, Laureth-4 has been shown to contain traces of a possible carcinogen and can be irritating to the skin. It can also be comedogenic, meaning it clogs your pores and can lead to breakouts.
All that said, the ingredient has been rated as safe by the Cosmetic Ingredient Review panel as long as it’s developed in a way that doesn’t irritate the skin. This means that we tell you this more for your information than something you should necessarily be worried about.
Buy now from Boots
Always apply the Olay Regenerist cream to freshly cleansed skin, and after any targeted treatments. This includes any serums, retinol treatments or similar. You can then smooth the cream evenly over your face and neck.
To get the most from the cream, Olay recommends you use a massaging technique during application as follows:
Buy now from Boots
In our hydration tests, the Olay Regenerist performed poorly. After five minutes, the cream boosted hydration by 7.7% on average but dropped significantly after an hour. In fact, the hydration levels after using the Olay Regenerist were lower than before we applied it, causing an average drop of 1.4% overall.
This is despite the brand claiming the Regenerist cream “instantly hydrates skin for 24 hours.”
In Olay’s defense, it claims the cream penetrates “10 layers deep” so it may be that during the hour, the cream simply went deeper into the skin. Our hydration-testing gadget either can’t take readings that deep, or the silicone in the cream created a barrier that stopped the readings from reaching that deep.
mamabella | mamabella The image on the left shows our smart mirror results before our six-week Olay Regenerist review. The image on the right shows our smart mirror results after. The higher the score, the better
In our smart mirror tests, however, it was a very different, and much more story. As you can see in the image above, almost every single skin concern improved over our six-week Olay Regenerist review period.
The biggest improvement was seen in red spots – rising from a score of 68 and “Could Be Improved”, to an “Excellent” score of 96. The cream improved our wrinkles, roughness, and even the appearance of our pores while our fine lines and dark circles remained the same.
Although this may seem like a negative, it’s hard to know how much skin aged during our six-week Olay Regenerist review period. As a result, we’re celebrating the fact that at least those skin concerns didn’t get worse, as has been the case when testing other skincare products. In short, it appears the cream stemmed the tide rather than actively improved those scores.
| Before | After | Difference | |
| Dark Spots | 60 | 61 | 1 |
| Wrinkles | 67 | 74 | 7 |
| Red Spots | 68 | 96 | 28 |
| Pores | 78 | 88 | 10 |
| Fine Lines | 60 | 60 | 0 |
| Roughness | 65 | 71 | 6 |
| Dark Circles | 76 | 76 | 0 |
For each score, the higher the number, the better. A negative difference shows that the skin got worse, and a positive difference shows it improved.
Of course, these tests only tell part of the story.
After the first couple of applications, our face went slightly red. It didn’t burn or sting, but our complexion was noticeably more flushed. Once our skin was used to it, this appeared to subside but it’s worth noting if you have sensitive skin.
The cream contains silicone, which is what helps create a barrier over the skin and keep everything locked in. However, this can make the cream feel a little heavy and thick. We experienced a small number of breakouts at the start of our Olay Regenerist review but these cleared up quickly.
Especially when we paid more attention to cleansing our skin in the morning to remove traces of the cream from overnight. The silicone also leaves the skin feeling super soft, so it’s not all bad.
Buy now from Boots
@victoria_woolly_web A below-average increase after 5 mins but a notable drop after an hour – it gave worse hydration than at the start. Despite the brand saying it “intensely hydrates skin for 24 hours” 🫤 #mamabella #bestmoisturizer❤️ #bestmoisturiser #olay #olayregenerist #skincare #regenerist #moisturisers ♬ Miss You – Oliver Tree & Robin Schulz
Olay Regenerist promises a lot and at £34 it can seem like a gamble to spend that much on a cream. Especially when there are so many cheaper products available.
Yet, in our experience, it’s a gamble worth taking.
The cream isn’t perfect – its consistency can feel a little heavy, especially on oily skin. It doesn’t appear to hydrate as well as the brand claims and we experienced redness and small breakouts in the first couple of days.
Yet, we can’t argue with the smart mirror results.
Almost every skin concern improved during the six-week period. We had noticed our skin looked smoother and more glowy, particularly around the deeper wrinkles on our forehead, and we thought we generally just looked more youthful. The smart mirror then confirmed this.
The early redness subsided and using the cream actually resulted in our red spots improving drastically. Wrinkles were significantly reduced, as were roughness and the appearance of our pores. In just six weeks.
We’re not sure you can ever truly warrant spending £34 on a cream but, in our experience, at least you’re getting what you pay for with the Olay Regenerist.
The following list of ingredients is taken from the INCI Decoder website. Hover over each ingredient to learn more about it. The numbers next to each ingredient represent its Irritation Rating (the number to the left of the comma), and then Comedogenic Rating (to the right of the comma).
sii|h 0 0, Niacinamide cci|sb|aacne|h, Aluminum Starch Octenylsuccinate vc, Dimethicone emo 0 1, Dimethicone Crosspolymer vc, Panthenol 
so|h 0 0, Polyethylene vc, Polyacrylamide vc, Tocopheryl Acetate aox 0 0, C13-14 Isoparaffin emo|vc|solv, DMDM Hydantoin 
pres, Allantoin so 0 0, Laureth-4 emu|surf 4 5, Dimethiconol emo|h, Laureth-7 emu|surf, Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer vc, Sodium Hyaluronate sii|h 0 0, Sodium PEG-7 Olive Oil Carboxylate emu, Disodium EDTA chel, Peucedanum Graveolens (Dill) Extract, Citric Acid buff, PEG-100 Stearate surf|emu 0 0, Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract aox|so, Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate pres, Palmitoyl Pentapeptide-4 cciHover 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
