This $48 Skin Tint Gave Me the Glowing Skin of a Hydrated Goddess

Somewhere along the way — between bottled water commercials, perfume ads, and Hailey Bieber simply existing — we were led to believe that perfect skin was as easy as drinking eight ounces of ionized water upon waking from our perfectly restful eight hours of sleep. It’s not, of course. Not even Hailey Bieber and Jennifer Aniston live on a skin-care diet of spring water alone. But the closer we can get to a one-step, cure-all, dewy skin-maker, the closer we get to Aniston-dom. 

Ilia’s Super Serum Skin Tint promises to check those boxes — it’s part skin care, part base makeup, and part sun protection in one little magic glass bottle. So chic! So effortless! So Aniston!

If ease alone isn’t a selling point, then polished, hydrated skin had me frantically fumbling for my credit card. I wanted to see if Ilia’s Super Serum Skin Tint really was the secret to bouncy, Aniston-y skin, so I tried it for myself.

Meet the Experts:

• Hadley King, MD, a board-certified dermatologist in New York City.
• Krupa Koestline, a cosmetic chemist and founder of KKT Consultants.

In this Story:

Ilia Super Serum Skin Tint: An Overview

Ilia’s Super Serum Skin Tint essentially combines three steps of your skin-care routine — hydration, coverage, and sun protection — into one product. You’ve got your skin-care ingredients like hyaluronic acid and squalane, a very sheer tint (in 30 different shades), and mineral SPF. Clean beauty fans (the product meets the Allure Clean Standard) will appreciate that it’s silicone-free, fragrance-free, chemical screen-free, oil-free, and non-comedogenic. 

The formula is super lightweight and is the same consistency as your regular skin-care serums (a little runny right out of the bottle but is easily absorbed as you pat it into your skin). It has no added fragrance, so what you’re left with is a “natural” smell — maybe a little earthy  — but the scent is only really noticeable during application and disappears quickly.

Ingredients and Formulation

Reviewed by dermatologist Hadley King, MD, and cosmetic chemist Krupa Koestline

Unsurprisingly, the ingredients in Ilia Super Serum Skin Tint are skin-care-forward — the headliners are hyaluronic acid, niacinamide, and squalane — with the cherry on top being an SPF 40. “Hyaluronic acid is a powerful humectant, which makes it a great topical hydrator as long as you combine it with emollients and occlusives,” says board-certified dermatologist Dr. Hadley King.