Nico Cosmetics Anti-Wrinkle Snake Serum (Maximum Strength 4%)

RRP: £95

--About the brand--

"Nico Cosmetics is a new cutting edge brand in skin and body care products. We are a team of knowledgeable and innovative professionals, who have worked with a preferred UK leading supplier, for the design and manufacture of our product range in specialist studio, laboratory and production facilities.

All our products have undergone extensive dermatological and clinical tests to deliver effective skin and body treatments.

We provide highly effective skincare treatments to people who are looking for result driven qualities from a company they can trust.

Our team are currently working on many more products and our range will quickly expand over the coming months... so keep up to date with the Nico Cosmetics range.

All our products are made in the UK."

--What does the promo say?--

"Nico Cosmetics Anti-Wrinkle Snake Serum is a light gel formulated with maximum strength 4% of the active ingredient SYN AKE, which is an anti-wrinkle compound inspired by the Temple Viper serum. The serum is moisturising and rejuvenating with anti oxidants that prevent free radical damage. The anti-wrinkle properties reduce persistent expression lines that tend to remain, providing a decrease or elimination of wrinkle size, achieving beauty spa standard results. With a smoothing effect, promoting a youth prolonging treatment, leaving your skin glowing and radiant.

• Remarkable Age Killing Effect
• Intervention against the first signs of ageing
• Non invasive 
• Decrease in wrinkle size
• Smoothing
• Anti-wrinkle breakthrough
• 30ml"

--Packaging--
I'm in two minds about the packaging of this serum (which was kindly sent to me by Nico's PR staff). On the one hand, the effort's clearly there with a sleek black, purple and silver colour scheme (my favourite colours - yay!). But on the other hand, it looks cheap - all of the elements are plastic and frankly this is just not what you expect for £95 (you want elegance and wow-factor for the money paid). I only hope that if they've skimped on packaging, it's because the ingredients inside the bottle are truly top dollar. Let's admit it - we'd all rather have a better product inside slightly naff packaging than an inferior one inside amazing packaging, wouldn't we?

--Application--
This is a serum, so like all serums should be applied to the face after cleanser and toner, but before moisturiser. However, thanks to the super-smoothing effect described above, I've found that you can even replace your normal moisturiser with this serum and not suffer any ill effects. Hoorah :)

--Appearance--
A translucent, cloudy white gel which fades into invisibility on the face.

--Scent--
Clean without being chemical or clinical.

--Texture and consistency--
A smooth, cooling gel that resembles many other serums on the market, including Lancôme's Génifique and No7's Protect and Perfect. Sinks into skin very easily without stickiness.

--Effects on the skin--
As noted above, the first and foremost thing that I noted was the smoothing effect: I'm not sure I've ever encountered a serum before that you could wear without moisturiser in the dead of winter and that would enable you to still come back home with baby-soft skin at the end of the day. I also noticed a small increase in radiance. At the age of 26, I'm not sure that I'm really this range's target audience, and after a week's use, I haven't noticed any wrinkle reduction (believe it or not I do have a few - mainly around my forehead area), so nothing miraculous is occurring here.

--Value for money--
In spite of the smoothing effect and the increase in radiance, I find it very hard to believe that this product is really worth £95. I didn"t look in the mirror and think "wow"; I didn't receive any compliments on my skin condition. For £95 I also expect greater transparency in terms of what the ingredients are and what they do: to me, "inspired by Temple Viper serum" means nothing (I don't want to know what it's inspired by; I want to know what's in it!). If it were my product, I'd be bigging up the soluble collagen it contains, rather than resorting to cryptic phrases. I would therefore be very hesitant in recommending it for now, but will be passing it on to someone in the target age range to elicit their views. Keep your money in your wallet for now.

perfect partners
Moisturising Day Cream, £75
Moisturising Night Cream, £85
Swiss Apple Stem Cell Serum with Collagen, £85
Nico Skin Structure Rejuvenation System, £150*

*contains both serums, the day cream, and jade rollers