Lancôme Super Serums – Génifique and Visionnaire

As you probably know, I’m obsessed with skincare and making my skin feel like a baby’s bottom (that is not meant to be creepy). While Lancôme is pretty much a skincare household name, I’d never tried their products, since I thought they were for mature skin, but I was proven wrong when I was given Génifique and Visionnaire, Lancôme’s “Super Serums”, to trial.

Génifique and Visionnaire were both developed after many years of research. Génifique Youth Activator
contains active ingredients Bio-Lysat and phytosphingosine, and is touted to “revive genes’ activity” and “stimulate the production of youth proteins”. It’s claimed to improve skin radiance, tone and smoothness, giving it the appearance of youthfulness. It’s won over 130 awards worldwide.

Visionnaire [LR 2412 4%] Advanced Skin Corrector is a slightly different product. It targets enlarged pores, wrinkles and pigmentation, and contains LR 2412, a chemically altered derivative of jasmonic acid (from the jasmine plant), which is purported to act as a signal molecule which tells skin to repair itself. This penetrates to the dermis, where it supposedly boosts the skin’s self renewal process. When given to a group of women to trial, 84% saw improvement in overall appearance of skin after 6 weeks. It’s one of the best selling serums in Europe.

When the two are used in tandem, it’s claimed that 80% of women saw their skin transformed in only one week. So I was quite excited to see if these products lived up to the hype!

Génifique

Packaging: Génifique comes in a thick-walled glass bottle with a sexy black gradient design. It’s pretty sturdy despite the narrow base. It dispenses from a dropper, which has a nifty button at the top which fills the dropper with the amount of product you need, and prevents you from being a butterfingers and sucking too much into the dropper bulb.

Product: It’s a cloudy white liquid, slightly thicker than water, which absorbs quickly without tackiness and doesn’t feel particularly moisturising.

Result: I’ve been using 2-3 drops at night before my moisturiser – there’s not much of an immediate effect, but when I wake up, my skin feels beautifully smooth, plump and moisturised. I’m not sure how permanent this effect is and how long it lasts if I stopped using it altogether, but it’s definitely noticeable.

Visionnaire

Packaging: Visionnaire is contained in a luxe turquoise bottle with a very hygienic pump dispenser.

Product: Visionnaire is a white gel, with tiny pink pearlescent light reflecting particles. It’s strongly scented for a skincare product, which makes me wary – I personally like the scent and had no issues with irritation, but I can imagine that some people wouldn’t be so keen.

Result: I’ve been using one pump in the morning before makeup. It absorbs to a matte finish quickly, and leaves the skin silky smooth (likely due to the silicones in it) – it’s a great primer! It works great on my pores, and I can imagine that it would fill in wrinkles quite well too. As well as silicones, it contains hyaluronic acid, which would additionally plump up skin by drawing water to it. The reflective particles are very effective at hiding the redness around my nose, and seems to give my skin an almost airbrushed effect.

Verdict: I haven’t used the two products long enough to see if their effects are permanent, and it’s difficult to know if they really work since there aren’t any independently conducted published studies on the active ingredients (although I did see mention dermatologists from Manchester University being impressed by LR 2412, and there are a couple of studies conducted by parent company L’Oréal below). But I can see why so many women in Lancôme’s tests were impressed – Génifique is an incredibly effective skin plumper, and Visionnaire is basically a foolproof, all-fixing makeup base.

The main downsides to these products are Visionnaire’s fragrance – perhaps the active ingredients have unpleasant scents that need masking, but if you dislike the mildly floral fragrance, you’ll have a hard time dealing with it on your face. The other sticking point is the price – I’m young enough that I’m not willing to invest too much in a product that mainly targets things my oily skin won’t get for a while (namely lines and wrinkles), but this might change as I age!

Studies on active ingredients

J. F. Michelet et al. The anti-ageing potential of a new jasmonic acid derivative (LR2412): in vitro evaluation using reconstructed epidermis episkinTM, Experimental Dermatology, 2012, 21, 398.

A. Guéniche et al. Bifidobacterium longum lysate, a new ingredient for reactive skin, Experimental Dermatology, 2010, 19, e1.

This product was provided for consideration, which did not affect my opinion. For more information, see Disclosure Policy