PRODUCT REVIEW: CHARLOTTE TILBURY GLOW TONER WITH NIACINAMIDE – WHAT IS NIACINAMIDE? WHAT DOES NIACINAMIDE DO TO THE SKIN?
CHARLOTTE TILBURY | GLOW TONER WITH NIACINAMIDE
This review was originally part of my blog article titled, Bad, Better, Best: The Truth About 3 Treatment Toners. You can still catch the full piece here.
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When it comes to the Skincarma Blog and my work on my TikTok, YouTube and Instagram channels, I have long striven to be as objective and honest as I can be about the hundreds of products I try each year.
I do like to keep it positive, focusing my energy on the good, even great, products that I come across. If I’m spending time to write or record a review of a face cream, Vitamin C serum, mineral sunscreen or, say, a cleansing oil for dry skin, I want to put effort into the products I love – and can subsequently recommend.
I don’t spend a lot of time on crappy skincare. Ask me about a particular product and if I’ve experienced it, I’ll tell you honestly what I think of it. If I think it’s awful, I’ll tell you why and give recommendations for better products. I just don’t want to write about it!
I’ve been thinking, though, that I’ve spent a lot of time, money and effort lately evaluating treatment toners that brighten a dull complexion. Many of them are really well-formulated; some are good, some are great, and a handful really are just awful, for various reasons.
And I thought why not a blog article and social reviews on three treatment toners in particular – a great one, a good one and, well, a pretty awful one. I decided to refer to them as “bad, better and best.” It seemed catchy. You can catch my full article on all three here.
So let’s take a look at the “bad one” — the Charlotte Tilbury Daily Glow Toner with Niacinamide...
THE BAD ONE
Charlotte Tilbury | Daily Glow Toner with Niacinamide
I have never tried anything from UK makeup artist Charlotte Tilbury’s brand – until now. I actually never intended to. With its focus on makeup and skincare tailored for makeup wearers, the brand has never really appealed to me. And I’ll be honest, it seems gimmicky to me. It just has that air of marketing hype – like Dr. Barbara Sturm’s over-rated skincare.
The most popular skincare product from the Charlotte Tilbury brand is the Magic Cream Moisturizer – literally a $100 jar of nonsense. There are only three pro-skin health actives in the top ten of the INCI list: humectants Butylene Glycol and Glycerin, and moisturizing vegetable oil. Yes, vegetable oil! Magic Cream is like salad for your face.™
Ms. Tilbury is basically charging her customers a hundred dollars for a jar of Glycerin and vegetable oil. There’s nothing else in Magic Cream at a concentration above one percent. After La Mer’s $200 Crème de la Mer face cream, which is basically little more than a jar of Vaseline with seaweed in it, Magic Cream is the second biggest scam in all of skincare.
But I really wanted to give Charlotte Tilbury a try and the brand’s new Glow Toner with Niacinamide was the ideal product for me. I’m all about a brightening toner and Niacinamide is my favorite skincare active – with multiple benefits for the skin, including the ability to unclog pores, provide antioxidant defense, brighten the complexion, strengthen the skin barrier and even control excess surface oil.
NIACINAMIDE IS THE GAME CHANGER YOU NEED TO DEFEND AGAINST SKIN DAMAGE AND MAINTAIN OPTIMAL SKIN HEALTH
What Is Niacinamide and What Does Niacinamide Do for the Skin?
There’s a comprehensive article on the benefits of Niacinamide for skin written by the experts on the Paula’s Choice Research Team, titled simply, How Niacinamide Helps Skin. If you’re asking yourself questions like What Is Niacinamide and Does Niacinamide Actually Work?, then the article is ideal for answering everything you ever wanted to know. In summary, the miraculous form of vitamin B3 can unclog your pores, brighten your skin, protect it from external environmental damage and control excess surface oil. And that’s only the beginning. From the article…
How Niacinamide Helps Skin
Niacinamide is a skin care ingredient worthy of your attention and your skin will love you for using it. Among a handful of other amazing skin care ingredients such as retinol and vitamin C, niacinamide is a standout because of its versatility for almost any skin care concern and skin type.
As many of you know about us, but for those who don’t, the conclusions we make about any ingredient are always based on what the published research has shown to be true—and the research about niacinamide unanimously demonstrates how special it is. New research keeps showing it’s one of the most exciting skin care ingredients around.
What is Niacinamide?
Also known as vitamin B3 and nicotinamide, niacinamide is a water-soluble vitamin that works with the natural substances in your skin to help visibly minimize enlarged pores, tighten lax pores, improve uneven skin tone, soften fine lines and wrinkles, diminish dullness, and strengthen a weakened surface.
Niacinamide also reduces the impact of environmental damage because of its ability to improve skin’s barrier (its first line of defense), plus it also plays a role in helping skin to repair signs of past damage. Left unchecked, this type of daily assault makes skin appear older, dull, and less radiant.
Why You Should Use Niacinamide
As you might have gathered, we’re very impressed with all that niacinamide can do for skin when applied via skin care products like toners, serums, and highly concentrated leave-on treatments. Niacinamide is uniquely compatible with any of the products in your skin care routine, including those that contain retinol, peptides, hyaluronic acid, AHAs, BHA, vitamin C, and all types of antioxidants.
You can use multiple niacinamide-containing products in your routine, and it will still be non-sensitizing as this ingenious B vitamin is well tolerated by all skin types. It’s even suitable for use by those with sensitive or rosacea-prone skin.
Other helpful benefits of niacinamide are that it helps renew and restore the surface of skin against moisture loss and dehydration by helping skin improve its natural production of skin-strengthening ceramides. When ceramides become depleted over time, skin is left vulnerable to all sorts of problems, from persistent patches of dry, flaky skin to increasingly becoming extra-sensitive.
If you struggle with dry skin, topical application of niacinamide has been shown to boost the hydrating ability of moisturizers so skin’s surface can better resist the moisture loss that leads to recurrent dry, tight, flaky skin. Niacinamide works brilliantly with common moisturizer ingredients like glycerin, non-fragrant plant oils, cholesterol, sodium PCA, and sodium hyaluronate.
How does niacinamide help pores? Great question, although the answer here isn’t certain. Simply put, research hasn’t come to a full understanding about how this B vitamin works its pore-reducing magic, but it does! It seems that niacinamide has a normalizing ability on the pore lining, and that this influence plays a role in keeping debris from getting backed up, which leads to clogs and rough, bumpy skin. As the clog forms and worsens, the pores stretch to compensate, and what you’ll see is enlarged pores. By helping things get back to normal, niacinamide use helps pores return to their normal size. Sun damage can cause pores to become stretched, too, leading to what some describe as "orange peel skin". Higher concentrations of niacinamide can help visibly tighten pores by shoring up skin’s supportive elements.
So, you’re likely wondering is the new Charlotte Tilbury Daily Glow Toner with Niacinamide as ridiculous as the brand’s Magic Cream? Well, it’s not quite as nonsensical. There’s a good concentration of Niacinamide in the formula. By my estimation, it’s likely around 5%. If it were more than that, Ms. Tilbury and the savvy marketers at Sephora would have touted it because it would be a serious differentiator among brightening toners – and a game changer for the skin.
Regrettably, there are only five ingredients at a potential concentration higher than one percent. How do I know that? Because I know how to read a skincare ingredient list, or INCI. The sixth ingredient is Phenoxyethanol. The common preservative is allowed at a maximum concentration of one percent. And since ingredients are listed in order of their level in the formula, you can be assured that everything that appears after Phenoxyethanol is lower than one percent.
But don’t take my word for it. It’s common knowledge. From the website of the US government’s National Library of Medicine: “According to the European Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety, phenoxyethanol is safe for all consumers - including children of all ages - when used as a preservative in cosmetic products at a maximum concentration of 1%.”
Also in the top five ingredients before the Phenoxyethanol is silica. According to the experts on the Paula’s Choice research team, Silica is a mineral found abundantly in sandstone, clay, and granite, as well as in parts of plants and animals. Silica can also be produced synthetically, with both forms routinely used as an absorbent powder and thickening agent in cosmetics. Research has shown that silica nanoparticles can enhance the absorption of other ingredients and serve as an effective delivery system for antioxidants (such as quercetin).”
If you have a solid formula, you want the beneficial actives to penetrate the skin more deeply and effectively, right?
But…
What makes the Daily Glow Toner with Niacinamide so inferior is not simply its lack of pro-skin heath ingredients at an active level. There’s so much fragrance in the formula, it’s stunning. In addition to parfum (fragrance) listed at ingredient number 12, there are an additional eight fragrant essential oils. Yikes!
It’s so scented, I actually hate using it. The scent lingers on your face and the back of your hand for hours. I don’t mind a few fragrant plant oils, but who puts fragrance in a toner? Let me answer that: Charlotte Tilbury does.
What I like about it: Hmm…I guess the only thing I actually like about it is the five percent or so of Niacinamide. Yup. That’s it.
What I don’t like about it: The Charlotte Tilbury Daily Glow Toner with Niacinamide isn’t the worst treatment toner I’ve ever come across — but it’s quite inferior when compared to really well-formulated and effecting toners for brightening the skin. The high level of fragrance and low levels of just about anything else with the potential to improve skin health really depresses me. It surprises me, too, that there are no soothing actives like Bisabolol, Allantoin, or Chamomile Extract to calm skin exposed to the high levels of fragrance.
Who it’s for: All skin types, except sensitive skin.
SHOP THE BLOG: Purchase the Charlotte Tilbury Daily Glow Toner with Niacinamide for $55 here.
Why Is this Toner So Bad?
The Ingredient List of the Charlotte Tilbury Daily Glow Toner with Niacinamide:
Aqua/Water/Eau, Propanediol, Niacinamide, Silica, Isopentyldiol, Phenoxyethanol, Glycerin, Benzyl Alcohol, Dicaprylyl Ether, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter, Carbomer, Parfum (Fragrance), Sodium Hyaluronate, Trisodium Ethylenediamine Disuccinate, Hydrolyzed Opuntia Ficus-Indica Flower Extract, Sodium Hydroxide, Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer, Hydrogenated Lecithin, Citrus Aurantium Bergamia (Bergamot) Peel Oil, Trifolium Pratense (Clover) Flower Extract, Citrus Limon (Lemon) Peel Oil, Phenethyl Alcohol, Ethylhexylglycerin, Maltodextrin, Pentapeptide-48, Tocopherol, Limonene, Citronellol, Geraniol, Linalool, Citral, Eugenol.
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