City Beauty Review - The Dermatology Review

City Beauty Review

Skin Care Reviews

09.18.19AD DISCLOSURE

Some beauty companies are built around one key ingredient – sea kelp is integral to Crème de la Mer, while organic juice is the basis of Juice Beauty. Other companies are built around a need, where the founders either saw a gap in the market or wanted to solve a personal skin issues, such as psoriasis or rosacea, which were the driving force behind Sea Calm Skin and IT cosmetics. For City Beauty, the inspiration for the company came from the founder’s quest to find a product that would make her lips look fuller. One product turned into an entire skincare line. Here’s a look at what City Beauty is all about, what products it sells.

What Is City Beauty?

City Beauty was launched in 2002 by Victoria Renee. Renee was frustrated in her search to find a product for her thin lips. She wasn’t able to find a product that worked for her, so she set out to make her own. The result was City Lips, a lip plumping gloss that also hydrates the lips. The product received a wave of editorial coverage, including write ups in Refinery29, Good Housekeeping and Total Beauty. From there, the company grew to include a lash rebuilding product as well as a full line of skincare products. City Beauty mainly focuses on anti-aging products, but the collection includes products for all skin types and ages. City Lips remains one of its most popular products.

What Is the Concept Behind City Beauty?

According to City Beauty, the company’s mission is “functional beauty,” meaning that the line of skincare products is designed to help skin look its best. But the products are meant to do more than just make skin, lashes and lips look better temporarily. The product are also designed to help improve the skin, and are formulated to target skin concerns including fine lines, wrinkles, dark spots and skin texture.

What Does City Beauty Sell?

City Beauty sells lip and lash products as well as a comprehensive line of skincare products including serums and maks. Here’s a breakdown.

City Beauty Makeup

City Lips
The brand’s runaway hit makeup product helps make lips look fuller, smoother and glossier. The lip gloss is offered in 19 shades, including a clear option. Shimmer and opaque versions are also available.

City Lips Matte
This version of City Lips delivers a non-drying matte finish in 10 different shades.

City Lash
Designed for anyone who wants thicker looking lashes, this lash treatment is formulated to help minimize lash loss, as well as protect against breakage. The formula is also meant to help support the natural lash growing process.

City Beauty Skincare

City Beauty Illuminating Dark Spot Corrector
The Dark Spot Corrector serum can be applied to the face and hands to help fade dark spots. It can also be used on acne scars, redness and discoloration.

City Beauty Intensive Night Serum
Powered by extracts of goji fruit and ginseng, this evening serum helps soften the look of fine line and wrinkles, and helps skin look firmer.

City Beauty Multi-Action Sculpting Cream
The Multi-Action Sculpting Cream is packed with skin-soothers including caviar extract, hydrolyzed silk, aloe, oat kernel extract and green tea extract. The cream is meant to nourish skin will helping to make it look firmer.

City Beauty Line Smoothing HydroMask
One of the company’s best-selling products, this sheet mask is soaked with an anti-aging serum to help soften the look of fine lines and wrinkles.

City Beauty InvisiCrepe Body Balm
This rich body cream is designed to ward off the signs of crepey skin while also delivering a dose of hydration. The formula is powered by triglycerides and barley extract, and only needs to be applied once a day.

City Beauty Youth Rejuvenating Cleanser
Makeup, sweat and dirt are whisked away and skin gets a gentle exfoliation with the Youth Rejuvenating Cleanser. The formula is gentle enough to cleanse without over stripping and over drying the skin.

How Much Do City Beauty Products Cost?

City Beauty is a luxury line and the products are priced accordingly, which is in line with department store brands. The Line Smoothing HydroMask is $60, and City Lash is $90 a tube. Under Eye Recovery Cream retails for $50 and the Line Blurring Wrinkle Filler is $79. Products are available for one time purchase or if customers sign up for auto shipments, they can receive discounts.

Is City Beauty Cruelty Free?

City Beauty says its products are cruelty free.

What Ingredients Are in City Beauty Products?

City Beauty says its products are created with “skin-rejuvenating and collagen-supporting actives” including hyaluronic acid, a naturally occurring substance which can hold up to 1,000 times its weight in water; the antioxidant vitamin C which helps to brighten skin; oligopeptides (peptides that are thought to help restore skin), and resveratrol, a phenol found in the skin of blueberries and grapes.

Some of the more exotic ingredients include ginseng extract, caviar extract and hydrolyzed silk while the Under Eye Recovery Cream contains eye soothing (and depuffing ingredients) such as caffeine along with skin nourishing oats, glycerin, olive oil and coconut oil. The Line Blurring Wrinkle Filler contains ingredients that help “fill in” lines such as dimethicone, a silicone, along with diamond powder, rosehip seed oil and blue lotus flower extract.

Where Can I Buy City Beauty Products?

City Beauty is sold directly to consumers from its website.

Do City Beauty Products Work?

When it comes to finding the right products for your skin type and lifestyle, a little trial and error is always necessary. What works for one person may do nothing for you, so it’s always helpful to look at customer reviews. And no product ever gets 100% positive feedback – most products get a mix of opinions and reviews.

Since City Beauty is only sold on its website, most of the customer reviews available are only on its own website but some of its products have received write ups in the press, especially City Lips. Hola! magazine include City Lips in a feature looking at “Best in Beauty 2018.” That same year, Refinery29 highlighted City Beauty as a favorite of actress Elisabeth Moss. “This cruelty-free company hasn’t blown up just yet — but you can bet it will soon.” The website said that makeup artist Kayleen McAdams debuted one of the brand’s newest lip gloss shades on the Handmaid’s Tale star that year. Refinery29 said this about the lip gloss– “First of all, it works. Secondly, it has the pretty shine of a gloss, but boasts the longevity of a liquid lipstick, too.”

According to Refinery29, the brand’s most popular product, which sold out in one month after its launch, is the Line-Smoothing HydroMask. “We’re betting now that by the time next year’s Academy Awards roll around, every celeb will be prepping their skin with these.

The website Your Tango included the Multi-Action Sculpting Cream in a 2019 round up looking at 30 Best Night Creams To Reduce Aging, and the Line-Smoothing HydroMask was also included in a 2018 story in FabFitFun looking at “All the Best Beauty Products You May Have Missed in September.” The website described the mask as, “This isn’t your ordinary sheet mask. It’s a highly-active bio-cellulose mask that delivers a potent serum into the skin, which helps visibly reduce the appearance of wrinkles and pores and the effects of UV damage. Ingredients include ice plant, progeline, and hyaluronic acid — so, yes, you can trust that this mask will deliver results.”

Customer reviews are more scarce but some City Beauty products have been reviewed on Makeup Alley. The City Lips Collagen Lip Plumping Treatment gets 3.7 out of 5 stars from 97 reviews, and 58% of users said they would repurchase it. Reviewer ShakeItDontBreakIt wrote, “Here’s the thing – in my opinion of course – what makes this so excellent is that it moisturizes the lips so phenomenally that it’s actually changed my life.” MagicLoop2009 gave it five stars, writing “The wonder of it all, is that it lives up to [it’s]expectations!”

The vlogger Anne P Makeup and More reviewed the Multi-Action Sculpting Cream in early 2019. She used the cream for a month, concentrating on her jowl area and under the neck. She said she didn’t feel that it had a tightening effect, but that people told her face “looked more toned.” When Anne compared before and after photos of herself after using the cream for a month, she said she didn’t see any difference. Her conclusion is that the cream did not help sculpt her neck and face. Anne did say the cream worked well as a moisturizer.

What Are Some Alternatives to City Beauty?

City Beauty may not be for everyone, because of the price point or perhaps the products don’t react well with your skin. There are a few other brands to consider.

Formulyst’s philosophy is long-term and effective skincare. The brand wants to help its customers achieve their best looking skin, rather than covering it up with makeup. The comprehensive line of products addresses everything from wrinkles to dark spots and dry skin.

Healthy skin is hydrated skin. If you like the feel of a lightweight moisturizer, try Formulyst Super Hyaluronic Water Moisturizer. Hyaluronic acid helps keep skin plumped, hydrated and dewy looking. This oil free formula is packed with multiple types of hyaluronic acid and it works as a moisture magnet by drawing water to the skin.

Who doesn’t want smoother looking skin? Everyone does, but it can be easy to overdo it with harsh scrubbing which can leave skin irritated or inflamed rather than glowing. Skip the grainy exfoliators and choose a gentle but effective alpha hydroxy acid (AHA) which works to dissolve dead skin cells. Formulyst Retexturing and Perfecting Serum contains plant based acids to gently slough off old skin cells, leaving behind fresher, smoother looking skin. The serum also works to tackle unevenness and blotchiness.

THE BEST SKIN CARE LINES 2020

1

Formulyst

The philosophy of Formulyst is long-term and effective skincare, rather than covering up any imperfections. The comprehensive line of products tackles everything from wrinkles to dark spots and dry skin. While some brands rely on unnecessary fillers and scents, Formulyst focuses on ingredients that help create results, such as vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Many of the Formulyst’s products harness the power of plant and citrus extracts as well as gold-standard workhorses such as retinol. Read More
2

Advanced Dermatology

The Advanced Dermatology skin care regimen addresses the most pressing aging concerns. It can be used by men and women in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond. This award-winning system can help diminish wrinkle appearance, reduce dark spots and hyperpigmentation, fade away redness, even out skin tone and improve the appearance of eye bags and dark circles. Some of the standout products in this line include the Super Youth Serum, Complete Age Defense and Anti-Wrinkle Firming Night Treatment. Read More

City Beauty Sculpting Cream Review
What is City Beauty Sculpting Cream? City Beauty Sculpting Cream is an anti-aging moisturizer designed to visibly restore skin’s elasticity by lifting, tightening, and firming the look of sagging skin. Its formula is said to nourish your skin with the vital building blocks that give young skin its taut, springy...
INGREDIENTS

City Beauty Restoring Hand Treatment Review

City Beauty Restoring Hand Treatment is said to target the obvious signs of aging hands, such as dark spots and crepey skin. This formula contains emollients that will help to lock in moisture, such as shea butter, sweet almond oil, and several synthetic emollients. One unique key ingredient is Opuntia Ficus-Indica (prickly pear) stem extract, which helps to soothe and hydrate the skin. The formula also contains green and brown microalgae. This microalgae helps restore a firmer, thicker look and feel to crepey skin. It supports the proteins collagen and elastin, while also helping to lock in moisture. The final key ingredient we’d like to highlight is licorice root extract. Licorice root extract is well known for its anti-inflammatory and skin-soothing properties. But licorice can also provide a considerable skin brightening effect thanks to a component called glabridin, which means that City Beauty Restoring Hand Treatment may be able to help get rid of age spots on your hands
INGREDIENTS

City Beauty Advanced Eye Cream Review

City Beauty Advanced Eye Cream is a rich cream that is said to deliver deep, soothing hydration while helping to reduce the appearance of wrinkles and dark under-eye bags, resulting in a brighter, smoother, more youthful look. One of the key ingredients in this City Beauty eye cream is Albizia Albizia Julibrissin (Persian silk tree) bark extract, which works by counteracting the harmful effects of glycation. Glycation occurs when sugars enter the circulation and attach themselves to the amino groups of tissue proteins, such as collagen, rearranging their structure into advanced glycation end products (AGEs). As a result, AGEs cause once healthy collagen and elastin fibers to lose their elasticity, thereby becoming rigid, more brittle, and prone to breakage. Albizia Julibrissin bark extract can also neutralize or detoxify the products as they are leading up to glycation, resulting in a reparative effect on tired skin, in particular a loss of radiance and suppleness. 

City Beauty Advanced Eye Cream also includes diamond powder as a key ingredient. Diamond powder contains light-reflecting particles that help to instantly reduce the look of fine lines and wrinkles by giving the skin a diffused, “soft-focus” effect. However, the beauty benefits you get from diamond powder are temporary. This is because diamonds are inactive and do not penetrate the skin. When you wash your face, you’re washing off the diamonds, which prevents them from providing any sort of long-term benefit for your skin. Lastly, there are several hydrating ingredients in this City Beauty eye cream, such as red algae extract, knotted wrack extract, aloe vera, and more.

INGREDIENTS

City Beauty Under Eye Recovery Review

City Beauty Under Eye Recovery is said to brighten the look of dark circles while smoothing the appearance of fine lines and puffiness. One of the key ingredients in this City Beauty eye cream is nylon-12 fluorescent brightener 230 salt. Even though the name of this ingredient is pretty complex, complex, the way it works is simple: it absorbs UV light and re-emits that energy as diffuse visible light. The emitted light illuminates the shadowed areas of wrinkles, enlarged pores, and other skin imperfections, thus significantly reducing their appearance. In addition, the structure of the particle combined with its encapsulation coating diffuses the light reflected from the skin’s surface giving a soft-focus effect, thus further reducing the appearance of skin imperfections. But we’d like to point out that the effects of this ingredient are only temporary and will disappear once you wash off the product. 

Like many eye care products, the City Beauty Under Eye Recovery formula includes caffeine. As a natural stimulant, caffeine causes vasoconstriction (constriction of the blood vessels) and stimulates blood flow when applied to the skin. Vasoconstriction can tighten and firm the skin due to the removal of excess fluids and possible stimulation of the lymphatic drainage system. This function also aids in reducing the amount of blood that accumulates under the eyes (a major factor that contributes to dark circles).
INGREDIENTS

City Beauty Line-Blurring Wrinkle Filler Review

You’ve probably heard of acne spot treatments, but what about aging spot treatments? That’s exactly what the City Beauty Line-Blurring Wrinkle Filler is: a spot treatment that fills in creases and instantly blurs the look of wrinkles. This formula contains high concentrations of several different types of silicones (dimethicone, cyclohexasiloxane, cyclohexasiloxane, cyclopentasiloxane, and more). Silicones improve the spreadability of a product and leave a silky smooth skin feel. Due to this easy-to-spread consistency, silicones can easily fill in fine lines, wrinkles, pores, and other texture. 

City Beauty Line-Blurring Wrinkle Filler also features diamond powder as a key ingredient. Diamond powder contains light-reflecting particles that help to instantly reduce the look of fine lines and wrinkles by giving the skin a diffused, “soft-focus” effect. However, the beauty benefits you get from diamond powder are temporary. This is because diamonds are inactive and do not penetrate the skin. When you wash your face, you’re washing off the diamonds, which prevents them from providing any sort of long-term benefit for your skin. While the effects provided by the diamond dust are only temporary, there are several ingredients in this spot treatment that could provide long-term benefits, such as peptides and ceramides. But we’d like to point out that City Beauty uses low concentrations of these beneficial ingredients (less than 1%). We know this by looking at the ingredient list (which is in order of descending concentrations). All of these ingredients are listed after the preservative phenoxyethanol, which cannot be used in concentrations more than 1%
INGREDIENTS

City Beauty Microbiome Night Mask Review

City Beauty Microbiome Night Mask is a sleeping mask that works with the body’s nighttime renewal process to help balance the skin’s microbiome, support the skin’s natural barrier, and reduce the appearance of wrinkles. It is said to promote visibly smoother, denser, and younger-looking skin in the morning. The mask mask contains probiotics aka the various strains of helpful bacteria that collaborate with your skin to restore the skin’s microbiome. The microbiome is a population of many types of bacteria (over 10,000 different species) that are both good and bad. When there’s more bad bacteria than good, skin conditions like acne, sensitive skin, and bumpy, uneven skin texture can develop. Thus, keeping the microbiome balanced is critical in maintaining healthy skin.

One unique ingredient in the City Beauty Microbiome Night Mask is Orobanche rapum extract. In studies, this botanical extract was shown to offer numerous benefits, including protection of skin stem cells, reactivation of cellular metabolism, stimulation of skin cell differentiation, reinforcement of the skin barrier, reactivation of natural exfoliation, and protection of the skin’s microbiome. Pretty impressive, right?
INGREDIENTS

City Beauty Blue Defense Hydrogel Review

City Beauty Blue Defense Hydrogel is a hydrating facial moisturizer that gets its name from its ability to protect against damaging blue light, also known as HEV light, which is emitted from electronic devices, digital screens, (smartphone, laptop, TV, tablet, etc), fluorescent and LED light bulbs. Long-term exposure to concentrated concentrated sources of blue light energy can cause skin damage, including inflammation, uneven skin tone, and weakening of the skin’s surface. The ingredient in this formula that protects against blue light is called B-Circadin, which is an extract from the Lespedeza Capitata plant. B-Circadin helps to maintain the skin’s circadian cycle, thereby allowing the skin to better repair and regenerate. 

Another key ingredient in the City Beauty Blue Defense Hydrogel is hyaluronic acid, a hydrating ingredient that is well-known for its ability to hold 1,000 times its weight in water. In fact, this product is formulated with a hyaluronic acid matrix gel-base. It is said to instantly liquify upon skin contact and therefore absorb faster and attract water deeper. To help prevent moisture evaporation, it also forms a protective seal on top of the skin’s outer layer in order to keep your skin hydrated for up to 72 hours.
INGREDIENTS

City Beauty Uplift Firming Serum Review

City Beauty Uplift Firming Serum is a concentrated formula that is said to help skin look firmer, smoother, and more lifted within 30 minutes. This serum is said to promote more youthful skin by not only supporting collagen and elastin, but also giving your skin the fuel it needs to to make more collagen and elastin. This fuel is called ATP (adenosine triphosphate). It powers every cell in your body, including your skin. One of the key ingredients in this serum that supports collagen production is marine ferment. There’s also an algae extract called laminaria saccharina that helps support collagen and elastin levels, boost skin hydration, and reduces wrinkle appearance. 

Another key ingredient in this City Beauty serum is goji berry extract. Goji berry extract functions as a potent antioxidant, protecting the skin from free radical damage. Additionally, the red flesh and pulp contain carotenoids, such as zeaxanthin and beta-carotene (vitamin A). Beta carotene has the ability to increase cell turnover and regeneration in the outer layers of the skin, giving the complexion a healthy glow. The final key ingredient we’d like to point out is turmeric root extract. The main bioactive component of turmeric extract is called curcumin, a bright yellow polyphenol. Curcumin has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, and also has the ability to fade dark spots by inhibiting melanogenesis.
INGREDIENTS
  • Barbara Brease Original review: Jun 26, 2020. Reply

    I tried the The Multi-Action Sculpting Cream and my skin was irritated by it. I also could not handle the smell of the fragrance. I wondered if the ingredients of the fragrance were the irritant. Since they are not included in the labeling,, I contacted the co. via chat was told it is “synthetic rose powder.” Fragrance may include any number of the industry’s 3,100 stock chemicals (IFRA 2010), none of which is required to be listed on labels. Tests of fragrance ingredients have found an average of 14 hidden compounds per formulation, including ingredients linked to hormone disruption and sperm damage (EWG & CSC 2010)

  • Bob Smaracko Original review: Apr 27, 2020. Reply

    I placed an order on the City Beauty website. It was only partially filled. I submitted an email support case a week ago. It has not ever been answered though the auto reply that I received when I submitted my email indicated a 48 hour response time. A week later, nothing. Be cautious!

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