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We all know how important it is to get your beauty sleep. Not only is your body busy repairing and rejuvenating itself, your skin cells are at their most productive. While it’s good to use a moisturizer during the day, it’s even more beneficial to treat your skin at night.
As you get older, your skin starts needing more help to maintain its youthful appearance. We have yet to find a miracle solution to turning back the years. However, using a good night cream will help moisturize, repair, brighten, and firm, so not only will you wake up feeling rested, you’ll have a softer, smoother, and younger looking complexion we all desire.
When choosing a night cream for anti-aging, you should keep a few things in mind. First off, look out for ingredients such as retinol, antioxidants, and hyaluronic acid — all known anti-aging powerhouses. You should also make sure you use the right night cream for your skin type. However, don’t expect instant results as most creams take time to work. Finally, make sure you get that eight hours.
For maximum results, it’s best to apply your night cream after your serum. If you feel it’s too rich to use every night, then start with two or three times a week and build up.
After extensive research, reading hundreds of expert and buyer reviews, and thorough testing of the best night creams out there, we have come up with the cream of the crop.
Here are the best night creams you can buy:
Read on in the slides below to check out our top picks.
The best night cream overall
Why you'll love it: The First Aid Beauty Ultra Repair Hydra-Firm Sleeping Cream is our top anti-aging night cream because it works wonders on your complexion and it's relatively affordable, too.
This anti-aging night cream from clean beauty brand First Aid Beauty (a.k.a FAB) offers a cleaner alternative to other often chemical-laden night creams. The Ultra Repair Hydra-Firm Sleeping Creamis designed to combat the signs of aging and give you smoother, softer, and more supple skin. While many good night creams cost top dollar, this one won’t completely break the bank, which is why we love it.
A thicker version of FAB’s cult classic Ultra Repair Cream, it is formulated with a super-charged cocktail of peptides, niacinamide, hyaluronic acid, and colloidal oatmeal as well as conditioning butters and waxes — all of which are great for targeting the signs of aging.
The Ultra Repair Hydra-Firm Sleeping Cream feels thick but isn’t too heavy or greasy after you put it on your skin. In the morning, my complexion looked smoother and felt softer and more hydrated.
It’s not just me who loves this night cream. It features on Red Book’s“best night creams” list and is highly rated on Sephora with a whopping 20,000 loves. One happy customer said, “I love the way my skin looks when I wake up now. I am noticing my forehead wrinkles are fading and my cheeks look plumped and glowing!”
Pros: Good for all skin types, including sensitive skin, good for eczema, free from parabens, sulfates, and phalates, free from artificial fragrance, cruelty-free
Cons: None
The best night cream on a budget
Why you'll love it: For a simple but effective anti-aging night cream that gives you smoother, more radiant skin without the hefty price tag, Cerave’s Skin Renewing Night Cream is our top pick.
While most good quality night creams are uber expensive, you don’t always have to spend a fortune to get good results. Budget-conscious beauty lovers will love Cerave’s Skin Renewing Night Cream. Developed with dermatologists, this anti-aging night cream is designed to hydrate your skin and restore your skin barrier, so you can wake from your slumber with beautiful skin that looks refreshed and renewed.
The non-greasy formula is packed with powerful anti-aging ingredients including peptides, ceramides, hyaluronic acid, and niacinamide, which all help soften and revitalize tired skin overnight. It’s fragrance free and ideal for sensitive skin.
When I put Cerave’s Skin Renewing Night Cream to the test, I was pleasantly surprised. The cream is very thick but absorbed easily. The next morning, my skin looked smoother, felt more hydrated, and my fine lines were less visible. I love that it is fragrance-free and my sensitive skin didn’t react.
It’s not just me who is a fan of this no-frills workhorse. It is highly recommended by dermatologists and beauty experts alike and features on “best of” lists on Bustle and Best Seekers. It also gets an average of 4.2 out of 4 from almost 500 Amazonreviewers. Happy customers reported visibly smoother and softer skin.
Pros: Fragrance-free, non-comedogenic, suitable for sensitive skin, very affordable
Cons: Thick formula is better suited for dry skin
The best night cream to splurge on
Why you'll love it: If you’re looking to splash out on a state-of-the-art, wrinkle-fighting warrior that makes your skin look sensational, Peter Thomas Roth Un-Wrinkle Night is our winner.
This beauty favorite is formulated with a smorgasbord of potent anti-aging ingredients including retinol, glycolic acid, peptides, and vitamins. Peter Thomas Roth Un-Wrinkle Nightisdesigned to support natural cell turnover, repair environmental damage, and minimize the appearance of pores and wrinkles, all while you snooze, so you end up with beautifully soft, smooth, and radiant skin.
In testing, I found this night cream has a luxurious whipped butter-like texture and a pleasant, clean fragrance. It absorbed quite quickly and didn’t feel too heavy. A little goes a long way, which makes the high price tag more bearable. The next morning my skin looked brighter, smoother, and seemed more toned.
It’s not just me who loves Peter Thomas Roth Un-Wrinkle Night, it features on numerous “best of” lists including Total Beauty and Marie Claire. It got the highest tester score for reducing wrinkles and diminishing age spots on Good Housekeeping and has more than 4,000 “loves” on Sephora, with happy customers reporting soft, glowing skin with less visible fine lines and wrinkles.
Pros: Targets all signs of aging, good for acne-prone skin, effective
Cons: Expensive
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