Product Review: Drunk Elephant Glycolic Night Serum
In the blink of an eye, Drunk Elephant has become a cult-favourite within the world of skincare. Our Instagram feeds are full of photos of skincare shelves brimming with rows of their products. For a relatively new brand, it’s taken on some of the biggest rivals in the industry.
I’m going to give you an in-depth review on one of their most popular products – T.L.C Framboos Glycolic Night Serum. I’ll cover everything that you need to know about the product and Drunk Elephant as a brand, to help you decide if the serum will work for you.
Quick Summary: Drunk elephant glycolic night serum is a worthwhile investment into your skin care routine. It’s a hero product that hydrates your face, eliminates fine lines, evens out skin tone. It leaves you with brighter, younger and healthier looking skin. It’s on a higher price point compare to other serum, because of its highest quality and cleanest ingredients. Click Here to See Price on Amazon.
Table of Contents
Full Product Review – T.L.C Framboos Glycolic Night Serum:
The T.L.C Framboos Glycolic Night Serum is one of Drunk Elephant’s best-selling products. It is effective in reducing the appearance of fine lines, wrinkles and skin discolouration, minimising the appearance of your pores and reducing excess oiliness in your skin.
The serum aims to give you a high enough level of a chemical exfoliation without causing dryness to your skin. Users have reported that this product will have your skin going from drab to fab after just one use by brightening your complexion.
1. What are the Main Ingredients?
This serum uses 12% alpha and beta hydroxy acid concentration to improve the texture of your skin to leave it feeling smoother and more radiant. It exfoliates your skin with a combination of AHA acids without damaging your skin.
The primary ingredients in this serum are the alpha hydroxy acids – glycolic acid, lactic, tartaric acid, citric and salicylic acid (BHA)- which result in your skin feeling and looking softer.
- Citric acid is an antioxidant that exfoliates your skin by removing dead skin cells from your pores, and it is commonly used for its anti-ageing properties.
- Glycolic acid works quickly to penetrate the deeper layers of your skin, helping to reduce the appearance of impurities while hydrating your skin.
- Lactic acid helps brighten your skin and smooth out your skin tone by treating hyperpigmentation and sunspots.
- Tartaric acid helps with anti-ageing by hydrating your skin to help it appear plump and healthy to diminish the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
- Salicylic acid helps our skin to shed dead cells from top layer. and resurfaces dull skin. It also reduces redness, welling and inflammation.
- Product with Retinol is a very powerful elixir for all manner of ageing signs, including lines, wrinkles, skin laxity, dullness, and discolouration etc
The pH level of this serum is 3.7 which makes it ideal for exfoliating your skin without causing any nasty side effects. While this serum exfoliates your skin, it has moisturising properties as well.
2. What is ‘T.L.C Framboos’ ?
T.L.C Framboos is the AHA blend of the four acids mentioned above. It is this unique blend of ingredients that exfoliates your skin, brightens its appearance, and helps improve the texture of your face.
It also features sodium hyaluronate that helps repair your skin cells. The salicylic acid and glycolic acid unclogs your pores and helps smooth out the texture of your skin. This magical serum also features Drunk Elephant’s infamous Marula Oil.
So…. What is so special about Marula oil?
Marula oil is extracted from the fruit of marula tree found in sub-Saharan tropical Africa. It is very rich in Vitamin A, which is retinol in its purest form.
Marula Fruit
Other main ingredients of this serum includes several antioxidants. These antioxidants have anti-inflammatory properties which help reduce any redness in your skin:
The raspberry extract soothes inflammation in your skin while giving it a hydrating boost – and helps fight free radical damage to your skin.
White tea leaf extract is a strong antioxidant that helps soothe your skin.
Horse chestnut is another powerful antioxidant that helps soothe your skin while protecting it from free radical damage.
Cactus extract works in partnership with the AHAs in this serum to reduce the redness and skin sensitivity that can result from frequently using an exfoliator.
3. What it Does?
- Resurfaces dull skin
- Lifts dead skin cells away by gentle exfoliation
- Calms and soothes skin
- Reduces fine lines, wrinkles, discoloration
- Controls excess oiliness and diminish the appearance of pores
- Brightens and evens out skin complexion
4. Is Drunk Elephant Worth the Money?
It is a high-end skincare brand, designed for those who want to invest in the best-quality skincare routine. Their products are known for using the cleanest ingredients and without adding any unnecessary fillers. The American brand is also vegan and cruelty-free. Each of their products is 100% free of essential oils, silicones, and fragrance.
Unlike other brands that hide their ingredients list under stickers or in the smallest print font, Drunk Elephant is open about their ingredients. Their website takes an in-depth look at every main ingredient in their products, helping you understand exactly what you’re putting on your skin.
You would probably recognize their as the skincare brand with a white bottle and multi-coloured caps. Their packaging is distinctive and contemporary – as well as being all over our social media feeds.
While the packaging is important to catch your eye, it’s the high-quality ingredients on the inside that count!
5. What Skin type is Suitable for this Serum?
The short answer is : It is suitable for All Skin Types. Like all the Drunk Elephant products, this serum is fragrance-free and safe to use for sensitive skin.
Unlike other serums, this serum has a gel-like consistency. It is lightweight and absorbs into your skin quickly, without leaving any residue behind. Therefore, it is suitable for oily skin.
The yeast extract within this serum is what helps brighten your skin and reduce the appearance of premature ageing. The gel consistency reacts with your dead skin cells to break down the glue that holds them together so that they are easier to remove from your pores. As well as exfoliating your skin, this serum will reduce the appearance of fine lines, dark spots, and wrinkles. Therefore, it is also suitable for mature skin.
If you suffer from blackheads or hyperpigmentation in your skin, then this serum is the perfect exfoliator that will also hydrate your skin.
6. What does the Bottle look like?
Although the packaging isn’t everything, this Serum comes in Drunk Elephant’s traditional sleek white packaging, complete with a pink cap in Elle Wood’s signature pink tone. It’ll look at home on your skincare shelf or in your makeup bag.
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It is one brand that is scooping up every award in its sight – and this Serum is a favourite amongst beauty editors. It was voted as one of the ‘Best Beauty Buys’ for 2020 by InStyle magazine, and a winner of the Harper’s Bazaar Anti-Ageing Award for 2020.
7. How Should I Use It?
Serums should be the step in your routine after cleansing and toning, and before you moisturize. Make sure your skin is dry of any other skincare products before applying it to your skin, avoiding the eye area.
This serum can be used on your neck, chest and the back of your hands as well. Like other serums, it may take a few uses for your skin to get used to the product. Therefore, it is normal to experience a slight tingling sensation for those first few applications.
As a lightweight gel, the Drunk Elephant night serum is one product that feels as good as it looks. Once your skin is used to it, you’ll be reaching for it at least twice a week.
This serum is designed to be a rotating product in your skincare routine that you can swap out with other serums. You should aim to use this product at most every other night, alternating it out with another serum on off-nights. I recommends using the serum in rotation with their Virgin Marula Oil.
You should use one pump of this product to cover your full face as the gel goes a long way. Massage it into your fingers before applying it to your skin, focusing on any problem areas of your skin.
8. What to Watch out for when Using this Product?
- If you have dry skin, limit your use of this night serum to twice a week.
- If you have combination skin can use it three times a week.
- If you have oily skin, you can rotate this product and use it every other night.
- As this serum is an exfoliant, it shouldn’t be used the same night that you are using a retinol product.
- It is highly recommended to use a sunscreen every day that you use this product. You also need to apply sunscreen a week after you finish using it. As this is an exfoliator, you’ll want to take extra care to protect your skin from sun damage.
- A common problem with exfoliants is that they don’t appreciate being layered over other products as part of your night-time skincare routine. However, as the night serum has a lightweight gel consistency, it’s easy to layer over your cleansing products and absorbs into your skin before you apply your moisturizer.
- Make sure that you lock in all the benefits of this serum by finishing off your skincare routine with a moisturizer, which as their Lala Retro Whipped Cream. See below ↓
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9. Where Can I Buy It?
The T.L.C Framboos Glycolic Serum is available in 30ml and 50ml sizes Here on Amazon.com
As a cult-favourite skincare brand, it’s not unusual to see Drunk Elephant products flying off the shelf. If you see one in the wild, make sure to grab it!
Not ready to take the plunge and commit to the full size of this serum?
Then you don’t have to!
Drunk Elephant has several kits that you can buy which come with travel-size versions of their products to let you dip your feet into the water and see if the product works for you. They often come mixed and matched with products that work well together within the same product family.
Travel Size: Glycolic Serum + Marula Oil
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You can pick up a travel size version of the serum, along with the infamous Marula oil. As one of their best-selling products, it is featured in the majority of their gift sets.
10. What’s behind the brand: Drunk Elephant?
Let’s take a step back and look at the brand. It was founded by Tiffany Masterson, a stay-at-home mom turned beauty mogul overnight. It began in 2013 with a vision to create ‘clean’ skincare products. Tiffany had been selling a bar cleanser that was unknowingly part of a multi-level marketing scheme. It then inspired her to look into launching her own skincare line with clean ingredients.
Why are their products so popular?
The brand infamously has what it calls the ‘Suspicious Six’ ingredients that they won’t use in their products, including fragrance. Tiffany was actively involved with the formulation of each product, going through each ingredient like it is a shopping list.
They have expanded to include everything from skin care to lip treatments, to bath and body products, to cleansers and hair treatments. Their Hair and Body Vault Kit have you covered from head to toe. 
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Each product stays true to Tiffany’s original idea that skin care products shouldn’t come with ‘fillers’ in their ingredient list. There are no silicones, parabens or non-mineral sunscreen actives in any of the Drunk Elephant products.
As one of the fastest-growing skin care brands in the world, it’s no surprise that they were acquired by a conglomerate quickly. In 2019, the maverick skincare brand was acquired by Shiseido for $845 million, with Tiffany staying on as the brand’s Chief Creative Officer and President. The sale was one of the biggest ever for a skin care brand, coming in at eight times the value of their sales for that year.
11. Where the Drunk Elephant name came from?
It’s a nod to one of their main ingredients, marula, which is an intoxicating substance for elephants – a bit like how alcohol is for humans. Hence, ‘Drunk Elephant’! Virgin Marula comes from the ‘pip’ of the fruit and appears in the ingredients list of most of their products. Tiffany views it as a wonder ingredient due to its high concentration of fatty acids and antioxidants.
12. FAQ
1. Is it normal to have a tingly feeling when using this Night Serum?
- Answer: Yes, it is very likely normal to feel tingling when using this serum. This serum uses 12% alpha and beta hydroxy acid concentration to improve the texture of your skin. New users may experience a stinging sensation because of the acids. Therefore, if you have sensitive skin, use this product 1-2 times a week first. Once your skin is slowly adapting to this serum, you can use it once every other night.
2. Would this Glycolic Serum clog my pores or comedogenic?
- Answer: Drunk elephant products have undergone clinical trials to ensure that their products will not clog pores or cause breakouts.
3. Are there parabens present in this product?
- Answer: No, this product is paraben free.
4. How long do I need to use this serum before I see improvement on my skin?
- Answer: Some users see results and notice their skin become brighter and softer as soon as 4 days. Most users would start to see results after 4 weeks. We recommend to use it for at least 6 weeks because most users will see their acne scars and dark spots fade until around week 6 of using it. It is effective in unclogging your pores and providing greater skin clarity.
Conclusion:
The T.L.C Framboos Glycolic Night Serum is a worthwhile investment into your skin care routine. It’s a hero product that hydrates your face to eliminate fine lines, while gently exfoliating to leave you with bright and healthy-looking skin.
It is a must-have if you suffer from hyperpigmentation and blackheads. It is also an effective treatment that works well on all skin types.
If you’re looking to start experimenting with Drunk Elephant skincare, then this product is the perfect gateway into the brand. It’ll help you understand the social media hype about this female-founded skin care company. Click Here to see all reviews on Amazon.com
Recommend read: Marula Oil Vs Rosehip Oil: Which is better for Face and Hair?
