There are four things a face cream has to do. Renew, hydrate, smooth, firm. Most people don't know that the ingredients which do each job a) exist, b) have gotten much better in the last few years, and c) work together.
Renew: ingredients that support skin as it renews on its own schedule. Hydrate: not just adding moisture from the outside, but helping skin hold it, which is a different ingredient from hyaluronic acid. Smooth: a peptide that helps soften the look of expression lines. Firm: a peptide complex for firmer-looking skin.
Turn your jar over and count how many of the four it is even trying to do. Most creams do one, and the one they do is usually the cheapest of the four, because moisture is the easy job. Almost anything oily or waxy will make skin feel softer for an hour. The other three take actives that cost real money per kilo, and every brand decides whether to spend that money inside the jar or on the jar.
Here is what each job looks like on a label, using the four we put in our Day & Night Ageless Cream, because those are the ones I can vouch for.
Renew. Skin replaces itself on its own schedule, and the job of a cream is to keep that process well supplied, not to force it. We use Lipogard, which is coenzyme Q10 (a molecule your cells use when they make energy) blended with vitamin E in squalane. On a label it reads as ubiquinone and tocopherol. It's an antioxidant pairing for skin that looks even and cared for while it does its own work.
Hydrate. The cheap version of hydration is water plus something to slow it evaporating. The better version helps skin hold moisture itself. The ingredient we use for that is Pentavitin, saccharide isomerate on the label, a plant-derived sugar that binds to keratin, the protein your skin's surface is made of, and keeps moisture exactly there. It's a different ingredient from hyaluronic acid, which pulls water in but doesn't hold it in place.
Smooth. The look of expression lines, the forehead and the space between the brows, is a peptide job. Ours is Argireline, acetyl hexapeptide-8, developed in Barcelona and one of the most studied cosmetic peptides of the last twenty years. It's there to soften how those lines look.
Firm. Firmness is about collagen, the scaffolding the look of firmness depends on. We use Trylagen, a complex of peptides and proteins built around collagen, in the jar to support a denser, bouncier look as skin renews.
Now turn your own jar over. Ingredients are listed in order of quantity. Water is first, then usually a few oils and emulsifiers, and somewhere after that, if they're in there at all, come the actives. Count how many of the four jobs the list is actually attempting. If the only things you recognise are an oil, a fragrance and a vitamin, the cream is doing one job, and you already know which one.
One more thing worth knowing: these ingredients aren't secrets. Argireline, Pentavitin and Trylagen are sold by their makers to anyone who meets their standards, which is why you'll find the same names on jars at very different prices. Google any of them. That's the whole point of naming them.
-Jackie