The Top-Rated Night Creams of 2023

One of the most popular products in the anti-aging skincare category today are night creams. The goal of these specialized creams is to help accelerate your skin’s natural ability to renew itself and ward off unsightly fine lines, wrinkles, and skin discoloration, ultimately revealing plumper, more radiant-looking skin.

The demand for night creams comes not only from baby boomers but women beginning in their 30’s. Many consumers are starting to understand better how sun damage, air pollution, stress, and lack of sleep can result in fine lines, crow’s feet, loss of elasticity, and uneven skin tone.

The popularity of night creams has led to hundreds of different formulas flooding the marketplace. While these products all promise to deliver visible benefits, the reality is that many fall short. Some of the most popular brands don’t include proven ingredients in the correct combination and dosages to be effective, and many contain low-quality and even potentially harmful fillers.

With so many options, many of us women might still be unclear about what to look for in a quality night cream. To help cut through the clutter, we have compiled months of research on which ingredients have been shown to benefit your skin’s appearance.

This short guide will help you know what to look for and what to avoid so you can make an informed decision about which night cream is best for you. We also list our picks for the top 5 night creams sold today.

Let’s take a moment to understand better the difference between day and night creams and how exactly night creams work.

A Good Night Cream Helps To:

Rapidly exfoliate skin⁶

Accelerate cellular renewal⁶

Attract and retain moisture⁷

Strengthen the skin’s moisture barrier⁸

What Causes Aging Skin?

To understand how skin creams work, let’s first understand how your skin ages. Collagen provides firmness and elasticity to your skin. Every day, natural aging and environmental factors like UV rays, pollution, and smoking breakdown collagen.¹ At the same time, sun exposure signals your skin to overproduce melanin, which causes skin discoloration like freckling and dark spots.

Every night, while you sleep, your skin cells regenerate, rebuilding lost collagen and repairing environmental damage.² But as we age, this regeneration process slows down and, at some point, can’t completely fix the damage that’s been done. The result is crow’s feet, sagging skin, fine lines and wrinkles, discoloration, and you get the picture.

Getting Your Beauty Sleep Matters

In general, women, and especially working moms, don’t get enough sleep to maximize the skin’s regeneration process. Studies indicate that getting less than 5 hours of shut eye every night ages skin even faster and doesn’t allow it to recover as quickly from the sun and environmental damage.³

Conversely, getting at least 7 hours of sleep every night allows your skin time to renew. A study done at Case Western University showed that good sleepers experience 30% greater skin barrier recovery compared with poor sleepers. And one day after UV light exposure, good sleepers have significantly better recovery from skin inflammation.⁴

Day Cream VS. Night Creams

If you’re wondering why your day moisturizer won’t do for the night, it’s because each cream has different objectives. Day creams primarily protect your skin while night creams help replenish and renew your skin.

Day Creams

During the day, your skin is under constant assault by the damaging UV rays of the sun and air pollution. So, your day cream needs to offer protection from the sun, combat dryness, and increase elasticity and hydration. Day creams almost always contain SPF and antioxidants like Vitamin C to protect your skin from the sun and the environment. And the moisturizing agents are generally thin enough that they layer well under foundation and makeup.

Night Creams

A night cream is applied before bedtime, and its objective is to increase your skin’s natural cell regeneration process, which rebuilds collagen while you sleep.²

A high-quality formula should contain key ingredients to rapidly exfoliate the outer dead layer of skin, encouraging even more cellular renewal while deeply moisturizing your skin.⁵ The result is firmer, more elastic skin, and a reduction in wrinkles and sagging revealing the brighter, clearer, less discolored skin beneath.^1,5 And finally, anti-inflammatory and hydrating ingredients work to lessen the irritation that rapid exfoliation may cause. The ingredients used in night creams should not be used during the day as they can interact with the sun and cause your skin to become hypersensitive.

Top 4 Night Cream Ingredients

We spent months studying night cream ingredients and gathering user feedback. There are specific ingredients that, when present in a formula, help differentiate a high-quality night cream from a generic one. Below are four ingredients that have been extensively studied and been shown to reduce the signs of aging. These ingredients complement each other when blended.⁵

•  #1 Retinol: Retinol is the holy grail of anti-aging. It’s been used for over 50 years, and nothing comes close to its proven effectiveness. First, Retinol rapidly exfoliates the outermost dead skin layer revealing a layer of clearer skin. As a derivative of vitamin A, it encourages skin regeneration by stimulating the production of new skin cells — which happens while you sleep. Retinol makes your skin sensitive to sunlight, so it should only be used at night.⁹
•  #2 Peptides: Research shows that Peptides alert your skin to produce more collagen, reducing the depth of wrinkles and helping to reverse the look of sagging skin.¹⁰ Peptides were initially used to heal scars because they have remarkable skin repairability, including cell renewal and anti-inflammatory benefits. These special abilities also reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.¹¹
•  #3 Hyaluronic Acid: Hyaluronic Acid naturally occurs in your skin cells, and its job is to bind water molecules to your skin to keep it hydrated. Topically applied, it attracts moisture, helping your cells retain as much hydration as possible, so your skin feels and appears plump and healthy.¹²
•  #4 Niacinamide: Niacinamide is a Vitamin B3 derivative that benefits your skin in several ways. It’s an exfoliant that helps reveal brighter skin. It can also help your skin retain its natural moisture levels while strengthening the skin barrier, which protects it from damage caused by the environment. The result is a more balanced complexion, reduction in redness, dryness, discoloration, and irritation that happens when the skin barrier is impaired.¹³

3 Ingredients To AVOID
When Buying A Night Cream

1. Sulfates are cleaning agents known to strip the skin of vital nutrients and cause redness and irritation. It’s also been shown to clog pores, which causes blemishes.¹⁴

2. Parabens are commonly found in skincare products. They prevent bacteria and mold growth and extend a product’s shelf life. Parabens have been shown to copy the activity of the hormone estrogen, and one clinical study demonstrated a connection with the risk of breast tumors.^15,16

3. Mineral Oil and Petroleum coat your skin like cling wrap, clogging pores, and potentially causing acne blemishes. They’ve also been shown to slow cellular renewal, which may cause earlier signs of aging.¹⁷

Keep These In Mind When
Deciding On A Brand

Money-Back Guarantee

A reputable skincare brand demonstrates they have faith in their products by offering a 100% money-back guarantee. Some try to complicate their refund policies by placing limitations on what kind of returns they will take. Avoid any brand that does not have at minimum a no questions asked 90-day money-back guarantee.

Are The Amazon Reviews Real?

Research shows that in March 2019, there were 1.8 million new unverified reviews, with an average of 99.6% of them being 5-star reviews.¹⁸ Most of these reviews are from people paid to write them. These fake reviews inflate the number and overall star rating of a product. When deciding on a night cream that can impact the look of your skin, don’t rely on Amazon reviews as they can be extremely misleading.

2023’s Top-Rated Night Creams

Our review encompassed 94 different Creams, putting each through our rigorous assessment process. To determine 2023’s Top 5 Creams, we look for predicted effectiveness, supporting studies, safety, pricing, return policy, and overall customer satisfaction.

Revisil

Revisil™ Only $49/Bottle

• Revisil™ is a comprehensive anti-aging formula that keeps users younger and provides a healthy glow to their skin. It nourishes the skin cells and tightens the pores to give them smooth, youthful skin.
• The Formula is Easy to Take Each Day, and it Only Uses. Natural Ingredients, to Get the Desired Effect

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South Beach Skin Lab

Only $39/Bottle

• Releases deep wrinkles and tightens sagging skin: The Repair and Release cream’s powerful peptides will help repair deep wrinkles around your face, and crow’s feet and tightens loose skin at the root level.
• Skin feels softer and more subtle: The collagen-boosting peptide compounds will help to increase the collagen content on your skin, giving it a fuller and more vibrant feel.

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Triple Anti-Aging Cream

Only $49/Bottle

• The Triple Anti-Aging Cream ingredients are also known to make it easier for the skin to trap moisture. This ensures superior hydration, which in turn protects the skin from cracking.
• Eliminates Dark Circles from Around the Eyes
• Counters the Damage Caused by Stress

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Hydracellum

Only $49/Bottle

•  Hydracellums works on start seeing lighter, healthier, and younger skin immediately in the first 48 hours. 
• Reduced signs of premature aging
•  Improved resistance to inflammation
•  Speedy healing from wounds
•  Harmless And Organic Formula

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Skincell Pro

Sub Title

• Skincell Pro skin tag remover is designed to help you remove skin tags and moles. The serum is produced from natural ingredients that promise to get rid of all skin blemishes effectively and safely.
• This product also claims to eliminate warts, and skin tags without leaving any skin scars. It is effective, simple to use, and, most significantly, cost-effective.

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