Originating in the 1970’s, La Prairie is a European skin care brand owned by the German conglomerate Beiersdorf. The brand is known for its use of luxurious ingredients, such as platinum, gold, white caviar, and caviar.
Before splurging on these high end skin care products, it’s important to determine whether or not these ingredients actually benefit the skin. And that’s exactly what we’ll discuss below in our La Prairie review.
What are the Best Skin Care Products of 2022?
We’ll cover the formulation details, including the key ingredients in La Prairie skin care products and the research that supports (or doesn’t support) their use in skin care.
We’ll also share some La Prairie reviews so that you can get an idea of what customers really think of these products.
What Are The 5 Most Popular La Prairie Skin Care Products?
La Prairie offers everything that you would need to create a complete skin care routine, including cleansers, toners, moisturizers, serums, and more. Here’s a breakdown of the 5 most popular La Prairie skin care products.
La Prairie Skin Caviar Liquid Lift
The formulation of La Prairie Skin Caviar Liquid Lift is actually pretty disappointing, primarily because denatured alcohol is the fourth highest concentration ingredient. We can see why the brand included this ingredient, but we typically don’t recommend alcohol-based products. Here’s why:
On one hand, alcohol functions as a penetration enhancer by disturbing the skin barrier so that key ingredients can penetrate deeper into the skin. It also helps to remove excess oil and temporarily tighten skin while giving products a weightless feel and quick-drying finish.
On the other hand, alcohol-based products can cause excessive skin dryness. Over time, this can cause the sebaceous glands to compensate by producing even more oil, leading to clogged pores and acne.
Furthermore, alcohol disrupts the lipids that make up the stratum corneum (the outermost layer of skin), according to a publication in the journal BBA Biomembranes.
There are some beneficial ingredients in La Prairie Skin Caviar Liquid Lift, such as caviar, sodium hyaluronate, ginseng, oat, and other soothing botanical extracts. But ultimately, we don’t believe the benefits of these ingredients outweigh the risks associated with alcohol-based products.
Plus, this serum is packed with synthetic fragrance ingredients.
Bottom Line: La Prairie Skin Caviar Liquid Lift uses alcohol to provide an instant tightening effect, however, since alcohol is known to break down the skin barrier, we cannot recommend this product.
La Prairie Skin Caviar Luxe Eye Cream
La Prairie Skin Caviar Luxe Eye Cream contains high concentrations of emollients like petrolatum, hydrogenated vegetable oil, and acetylated lanolin. These ingredients help to lock in moisture and keep the delicate skin around the eyes soft.
This formula contains many of the same key ingredients as La Prairie Skin Caviar Liquid Lift, such as caviar, sodium hyaluronate, ginseng, oat, and other soothing botanical extracts.
Plus, there’s peptides to help stimulate collagen synthesis, leading to firmer, more youthful-looking skin.
And like most eye creams, the La Prairie Eye Cream includes caffeine. As a natural stimulant, caffeine causes vasoconstriction (constriction of the blood vessels) when applied to the skin, which helps to reduce eye puffiness and dark circles.
Unfortunately, this La Prairie eye cream is packed with fragrance ingredients, which is especially problematic since the skin around the eyes is so delicate.
Bottom Line: La Prairie Skin Caviar Luxe Eye Cream combines caviar with peptides, caffeine, and soothing botanicals to reduce signs of aging around the eye, but we’re concerned about the fragrance ingredients in this formula.
La Prairie Skin Caviar Luxe Cream
The formulation of Skin Caviar Luxe Cream contains high concentrations of silicones and emollients, such as dimethicone, shea butter, and sweet almond oil. These ingredients give this cream its luxurious texture while also helping to soften and smooth the skin and lock in moisture.
Similar to the other products in the La Prairie Skin Caviar collection, the key ingredients include caviar, sodium hyaluronate, ginseng, oat, and other soothing botanical extracts.
However, this is another La Prairie product that’s packed with fragrance ingredients, such as linalool, citronellol, geraniol, limonene, eugenol, and more. These fragrance ingredients have the potential to cause skin irritation and even damage to the skin barrier.
Bottom Line: A silky smooth face cream with caviar, sodium hyaluronate, and soothing botanicals, but keep in mind that this product contains fragrance.
La Prairie Pure Gold Radiance Eye Cream
This La Prairie eye cream has a rich yet silky texture due to the combination of occlusives like petrolatum and shea butter with silicones like dimethicone and emollients like hydrogenated polyisobutene.
You can thank mica and titanium dioxide for the instant dose of radiance created by this eye cream. Mica and titanium dioxide are minerals that add a shimmering effect and reflect light from the face, creating the illusion of a smoother, softer, and more radiant skin tone
Other beneficial ingredients include skin-soothing ginseng root extract, caffeine, and antioxidant vitamin E. And you can probably guess that gold makes an appearance in this eye cream formula.
While gold certainly gives this eye cream a sense of luxury (and also a hefty price tag), most skin care experts agree that the risks associated with applying gold to the skin outweigh any potential benefits. We’ll explain more about this in the Key Ingredients section below.
Bottom Line: This La Prairie eye cream instantly softens skin with emollients and silicones, while mica and titanium dioxide reflect light to disguise dark circles, but the inclusion of gold may be doing more harm than good.
La Prairie Platinum Rare Haute-Rejuvenation Cream
At $1,525 USD for just 1.7 oz, Platinum Rare Haute-Rejuvenation Cream is one of the brand’s most expensive products. The steep cost is due to the inclusion of colloidal platinum in this cream.
The purported benefits of applying platinum to the skin include reducing inflammation and defending against free radicals due to the metal’s antioxidant activity.
However, we want to point out that there are literally dozens of other antioxidants that can be found in skin care products that will defend your skin against free radical damage — without the ridiculous price tag.
The rest of this formula is pretty basic, with humectants like butylene glycol and glycerin, emollients like squalane and caprylic/capric triglyceride, and soothing extracts like ginseng and peony.
Bottom Line: While platinum may help defend against free radicals, we think there’s better — and more affordable — skin care products on the market than this La Prairie Cream.
What Are The Key Ingredients in La Prairie Skin Care Products?
Unfortunately, La Prairie does not disclose the ingredients that are used in their product formulations on their website. Thus, in order to evaluate the ingredients used in La Prairie skin care products, we had to research third party websites.
The most popular line by this brand is La Prairie Skin Caviar, and just as the name implies, all of these products contain caviar as the key ingredient.
Caviar certainly makes these products seem luxurious, but does this ingredient actually benefit the skin?
It turns out caviar extract can offer quite a few benefits to the skin. That’s because the eggs are very rich in nutrients, like vitamins and amino acids.
Caviar extract has been shown in studies to enhance the production of collagen in fibroblast cells, as well as boost the production of ceramides. Collagen is a protein that helps to keep skin strong and firm, while ceramides are waxy lipids that help skin retain moisture and give it a nice, healthy glow.
The other La Prairie collections feature high-end ingredients like gold and platinum. But once again we have to ask the question: do these ingredients actually offer benefits to the skin?
Unfortunately, gold isn’t a precious ingredient for your skin. It can cause a variety of problems, such as allergic reactions, rash, and skin irritation.
Also, there’s no published research demonstrating topical application of gold has benefit, especially in terms of anti-aging.
Similarly, there’s no research demonstrating that platinum has anti-aging effects or any benefit for skin whatsoever — its use in cosmetics is pure marketing.
We also want to remind you that nearly all La Prairie skin care products contain synthetic fragrance ingredients. The use of synthetic fragrance ingredients can be a problem because the brand can use a proprietary blend of chemicals to create the fragrance. On average, this consists of 30 to 50 chemicals (but it can have as much as 200 components).
Want to know the worst part? The brand does not have to disclose which chemicals they use on the label. They are allowed to list this blend as “Fragrance (Parfum)” on the ingredient list.
Furthermore, a 2018 study by Women’s Voices for the Earth discovered that in over 3,000 chemicals reportedly used for fragrances, 1,242 were chemicals of concern – and that included at least 7 possible carcinogenic (cancer-causing) agents.
Fragrance ingredients also have the potential to cause skin irritation and sensitivity.
How Much Do La Prairie Skin Care Products Cost?
La Prairie is a luxury skin care line, and the products are priced accordingly. For example, the La Prairie Platinum Rare Haute-Rejuvenation Cream costs $1,525 USD for just 1.7 oz, while the La Prairie Skin Caviar Liquid Lift costs $715 for 1.7 oz.
Where to Buy La Prairie Skin Care Products?
La Prairie Skin Care products are sold on the brand’s website, as well as high-end department store websites, such as neimanmarcus.com, bloomingdales.com, saksfifthavenue.com, and more.
What is The La Prairie Return Policy?
The La Prairie return policy states, “If you are not completely satisfied with your laprairie.com purchase, you may return within 30 days of purchase. Only items purchased on laprairie.com (USA) with valid and accompanying order information may be accepted for return.”
Is La Prairie Cruelty Free?
La Prairie is not cruelty because La Prairie skincare products are sold in mainland China, where animal testing is required by law.
Is La Prairie Vegan?
La Prairie skin care products are not vegan since they contain animal-derived ingredients, such as caviar and beeswax.
La Prairie Reviews
Unfortunately, the brand does not display La Prairie reviews on their website, so we evaluated customer reviews from Google.
One of the brand’s most popular products — La Prairie Skin Caviar Liquid Lift — has received an average rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars after more than 400 customer reviews.
The positive reviews for the La Prairie Skin Caviar Liquid Lift mention that it provides an immediate tightening effect while also helping to reduce fine lines over time.
For example, one review says, “This stuff really works! I’ve been using it for just a couple of weeks and can visibly see a difference. I noticed the fine lines are starting to disappear. I’ve started using both morning and evening as I’ve found that seemed to speed things up a bit. When you put the lift lotion on you immediately feel like your skin is tighter which is nice. It performs well under makeup as long as you don’t put too much on. Overall the product itself glides on super smooth and just has the faint hit of a flowery fragrance without being too overwhelming.
Another 5-star review says, “The La Prairie Skin Caviar Liquid Lift is such a luxurious skincare product. From the moment I saw the elegant packaging to when I placed it on my skin, I knew that it was going to be incredible. The texture is a beautiful pearl white color and it’s so creamy. It literally melts into my skin. It has a light scent that smells lovely. After using this liquid lift for a while I definitely noticed changes to my skin for the better. My face and neck both looked firmer and I noticed that it helped with some fine lines I have. The most noticeable was the lines around my nose , eyes, and forehead, the lines were starting to become less and less. My skin had more of a natural glow to it and looked healthier overall.”
However, there are a handful of negative reviews for the La Prairie Skin Caviar Liquid Lift, primarily from customers who commented on how strong the fragrance is, while others didn’t see the results they were hoping for.
For example, one review says, “As soon as this was opened I was a bit dissatisfied as the instant smell was not good. I continued to use the product and it was stickier than I expected and didn’t work as I wished.”
Another 1-star review says, “The perfume in this serum is soooo strong I couldn’t even stand it. I could feel the product making my skin tighter right away but the scent was so overwhelming to me I had to wash it off. I also didn’t really care for the consistency of this serum. I wish I could’ve left it on longer, but oh well. The price is pretty over the top. Lastly, I was surprised at the long list of ingredients in the leaflet.”
Our Verdict
While the inclusion of caviar, gold, and platinum in La Prairie skin care products is certainly unique, we can’t recommend this brand for several reasons, primarily the hefty price tags for products that contain known skin irritants.
Pros
- Formulas contain beneficial key ingredients (caviar, ceramides, peptides, sodium hyaluronate, etc.)
- Many positive La Prairie reviews
Cons
- High cost
- La Prairie is not cruelty free
- Some formulas contain high concentrations of denatured alcohol
- Research shows that gold can cause allergic reactions and skin irritation
- There’s no research to show that platinum benefits the skin
- Nearly all formulas contain fragrance
What Are Some Alternatives to La Prairie Skin Care Products?
If you’re looking for skin care products to address the signs of aging, one brand we recommend is Formulyst. Formulyst maximizes the use of powerful ingredients and minimizes the use of superficial ones, resulting in clinically advanced skin care solutions that help promote healthy, more youthful-looking skin.
One example is Formulyst Ideal State Moisturizer, a nourishing face cream that’s formulated to address the vulnerabilities of mature skin. Powerful complexes containing peptides, plant stem cells, vitamin A and ceramides help skin look firmer and tighter, reducing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. Neptune kelp, hemp seed oil, hyaluronic acid, shea butter and vitamin E provide hydration at a deep level. Reishi mushroom, ginseng extract, kakadu plum extract and gotu kola contribute adaptogenic and antioxidant properties that help combat environmental stress and promote a brighter, more even-looking complexion.
Another brand that balances the power of plants with cutting edge science is Carrot & Stick. Not only is Carrot & Stick good for your skin, it is also good for the environment as the formulas skip harmful chemicals commonly found in Skin Care products.
Fans of simple skincare should try Deep Science. Deep Science products are formulated with a few key ingredients that are the heavy lifters of skincare formulations.
References:
BBA Biomembranes, May 2012, pages 1410-1419
Women’s Voices for the Earth “Unpacking The Fragrance Industry” 2018
Nico Original review: Aug 24, 2020.
I have used La Prairie products for over 25 years. The quality is exceptional, the performance is unparalleled and the packaging so advanced. While I do enjoy procedures I always use my La Prairie to maintain healthy, strong great skin. My Derm is always impressed with the tone, texture and resiliency of my skin both pre and post surgery. The products are an investment in long term good skin. Worth every dollar!