The best face serums 2025
The only formulas you need for plumped-up, youthful skin
Dull, lacklustre or sun-scorched skin? Serums are your face saviours. After cleansing, applying serum is the magic ‘actives’ stage in your skincare routine. Packed with targeted ingredients, they are thirsty-skin-quenching, glow-giving, pore-perfecting and skin-boosting – which makes them well worth investing in. Choose well and it feels like you’re doing a really good thing for your skin. But which face serum should you use?
Which face serum should you use?
- ID YOUR SKIN CONCERN
Dull, dry, sensitive, acne-prone, early ageing? Pick an active ingredient to treat it. Hormones, weather, daily stressors all take a toll on skin, but serums can moisturise, exfoliate, regenerate or nourish – making them ideal for addressing your particular concerns.
- PICK YOUR INGREDIENT(S)
From peptides to ceramides, vitamin C to niacinamide, hyaluronic acid to retinol and all the antioxidants – there’s a skin-loving active for all.
- ID YOUR SKIN TYPE
Serums are suitable for most skin types, with many brands also offering formulas for sensitive, rosacea-prone skins. They also won’t sit on the skin like heavy creams and oils, which is great for those prone to acne. Do be sure to check the ingredients for anything you’re sensitive to though.
- HOW TO APPLY FOR BEST RESULTS
Apply to the face and neck, morning or night – post-cleanse, pre-moisturiser – ideally onto damp skin (it gives humectants something to hold on to). Massage your chosen product in with your fingers, or with a puff-reducing facial massage tool (kept cool in the fridge, to soothe), to boost your periorbital circulation and aid lymphatic drainage.
8 of the best face serums
Best for hydration:
Elizabeth Arden Hyaluronic Acid + Peptides Ceramide Capsules Hydra-Plumping Serum
The new kid on the serum block – and currently exclusive to John Lewis – these capsules are packed with high-performance hyaluronic acid that penetrates deep into the skin (four times deeper than other formulas, FYI). Peptides boost collagen to enhance firmness and deliver youthful bounce, while phytoceramides nourish and lock in hydration for smooth-as-silk skin. Plus, the individual, travel-friendly capsules offer high purity levels, too.
Best for brighter skin:
Trinny London Take Back Time Skin Vitality Elixir
Another win from Trinny London, this much-loved fan favourite is packed with powerful antioxidants including pro-vitamin B5, trehalose, xylitol and squalane, to help repair the skin barrier, soothe and nourish. Like a tall glass of water for thirsty skin, it harnesses micro-infusion technology to deliver intense nourishment with zero weight or oiliness. It suits all skin types and, despite being potent, it’s gentle enough to use morning and night. Like a filler in a bottle.
Best for mature skin:
Guerlain Abeille Royale Youth Watery Oil Serum
Powered by nutrient-rich black bee honey and royal jelly, Guerlain’s Abeille Royale range draws on 15 years of research to help combat visible signs of ageing by restoring plumpness. But of all the products, it’s this serum that’s ranked as a can’t-live-without. Proven to stimulate senescent mesenchymal stromal cells (science speak for your skin’s connective tissue cells), it deeply repairs and helps fill those pesky wrinkles. One customer raves that it ‘plumps up skin and makes it feel healthy in one sweep’.
Best to revive tired skin:
Medik8 C-Tetra Advanced 20% Vitamin C Gel-Serum with Phyto Exosomes
With heaps of vitamin C serums out there, it’s hard to know which one to go for. Medik8’s is a bestseller for good reason; easily sinking into skin, a little of this lightweight formula goes a long way. Combining vitamin C and acetyl zingerone to fight the damage caused by the sun and pollution, it’s also water-free to ensure the ingredients don’t degrade. Apply this zesty zing first thing to brighten your dull, lacklustre complexion, boost collagen and revive stressed-out skin.
Best for fast results:
Liz Earle Restore & Glow Instant Radiance Serum
Got dehydrated or sun-scorched skin? Want to look flawless, fast? This lightweight serum does it all, providing long-lasting, all-day hydration to boost skin’s radiance instantly, brighten and visibly transform dull, tired-looking skin. Formulated to improve skin tone and texture, it gets to work reducing the visibility of pores and fine lines. Great for sensitive skin types, a little goes a long way.
Best hyaluronic acid:
The Ordinary Hyaluronic Acid 2% + B5
Recently voted the UK’s number one serum brand, The Ordinary has reformulated this bestseller (its best-loved hydration serum). Now containing five forms of hyaluronic acid to penetrate multiple layers of the skin, ceramides to lock in moisture, and pro-vitamin B5 to support the skin barrier. Gentle enough to use morning and night (minus any dryness or redness), it’s suitable for hyaluronic acid devotees and first-timers alike. Get it into your daily routine and prepare to fall in L-O-V-E.
Best for age-defying:
Dermalogica Neurotouch Symmetry Serum
We know, we know; it’s pricey. But you can practically feel the luxurious ingredients working wonders. Dermalogica leverages more than 30 years of skin treatment expertise to combine active ingredients, stress-reducing adaptogenic botanicals and a biomimetic hexapeptide (amino acids, to you and me) to enhance skin health. Rosewood extract helps target and sculpt the jawline, while bioengineered bacillus ferment helps to lift. All of this and a spa-like aromachology blend to uplift your mood.
Best for affordable excellence:
Whether you’re new to Korean skincare or a K-beauty addict, make room for Laneige’s Bouncy & Firm Serum on your beauty shelf. Carefully formulated to be both a powerful concentrate yet gentle enough for sensitive skin, it draws on high-performing ingredients – including peptide water, peony and collagen complex and niacinamide – to perk up tired skin and leave it smooth as silk. Meanwhile, vitamin C improves firmness and leaves your complexion feeling truly cared for.
