Our Rating: 5 stars

When I read the ingredients list for ReLuma’s brand new eye cream, my eyes popped. Of course, I was expecting the company’s signature human adipose derived stem cell conditioned media and there it was, the first ingredient (as it is in all ReLuma products). What caused my surprise was the other eye cream essentials, such as Eyeliss, Eyeseryl and Matrixyl 3000. After using ReLuma Eye Cream ($95) for just about a month, I can say that it is excellent.

I know, I know…. What everyone (well, those who know me) wants to know is how  ReLuma Eye Cream compares to my all-time favorite, Your Best Face Correct. And I don’t have a straightforward answer for you. Frustrating, I know. But at least let me explain why. I have been using YBF Correct for a couple of years on and off. The first bottle I used did the heavy lifting of smoothing out fine lines around my eyes to an extent that was transformative. Since then I have tried many other eye creams and usually find that they fail to maintain the good work done by Correct (a deserved best seller in the TIA shop) and so I have to go back to it. ReLuma’s Eye Cream has, so far, easily kept up with the high standards set by Correct, in that it is maintaining the condition of my eye area skin and is also helping some lines to diminish further. Whether ReLuma would be as good as Correct was at that first stage, I can’t say. What I can say is that this is an eye cream that I will continue to use and I believe it will continue to give good results.

Now back to ReLuma Eye Cream. The key active is obviously the stem cell conditioned media, a complex of growth factors that signal cells to go off and do good things such as repair wrinkles or wounds. The remaining ingredients are also very good quality and represent what is probably the eye cream hit parade right now. These days there isn’t an eye cream that is formulated without expression line inhibitors and here there are two: acetyl hexapeptide-8, which also goes by the name of Argireline, and pentapeptide-18.

More interesting is Eyeseryl. This is the marketing name for a peptide that is supposed to reduce water retention and ensure lymph drainage, while protecting collagen from cross-linking and causing baggy eyes. Apart from this it reduces leaking of fluids from the capillaries into the tissue, which can cause puffy eyes. In clinical tests, it has also reduced dark under circles. I don’t suffer from dark circles, but I have certainly found ReLuma Eye Cream to be a good depuffer and it may be as a result of this.0

Haloxyl is also a dark circle fader. This is a peptide formulation that also includes chrysin and hydroxysuccinimide. The two color degradation elements in hemaglobin are bilrubin and iron. Chrysin, from passionflower, stimulates the enzyme that clears out bilrubin while hydroxysuccinimide makes the iron soluble so that it can be eliminated.

Eyeliss will certainly help with puffiness. This is made up of hesperidin, a flavenoid found in citrus fruits and it strengthens capillaries (the idea is that they would then leak less – the cause of dark circles) and dipeptide-2, which improves lymphatic drainage so that bags are diminished.

All of these, like the peptides that make up Matrixyl 3000, are tried and true. New to me, however, was a complex called Roxisomes. This is a botanical called arabidopsis thaliana combined with lecithin. I then realized that I had come across arabidopsis thaliana, a tiny flowering plant with a very short lifespan, in the Kardashian sisters’ Perfect Skin. It is supposed to contain an enzyme that repairs DNA.

A gentle squeeze of ReLuma Eye Cream’s pump is enough for each eye and shea butter, glycerin and squalane do a good job of moisturizing. Based on current usage, I think that this will last me around four months, making it pretty good value.

Ingredients

Human adipose derived stem cell conditioned media, DI water, acetyl hexapeptide-8, hydroxyl acrylate/sodium, acryloy dimethyl taurate copolymer, jojoba oil, glycerin, Eyeseryl (acetyl tetrapeptide-5), pentapeptide-18/caprylyl glycol, palmitoyl tripeptide-5, Eyeliss (Hesperidin Methyl Chalcone/steareth-20/dipeptide-2, palmitoyl tetrapeptide-7, polysorbate-20) Haloxyl (steareth-20 N-hydroxysucchimide/chrysin/palmitoyl oligopeptide, palmitoyl tetrapeptide-7), shea butter, DL-alpha tocopheryl acetate, squalane (olive oil), niacinamide, phenoxyethanol, dimethicone, grape fruit extract, tetrahexyldecyl ascorbate, Roxisomes (lecithin, arabidopsis thalana extract, green tea extract, sodium hyaluronate, co-enzyme Q10, alpha arbutin, licorice extract, DL panthenol.