Sunday Riley faced major challenges in the past 2 years as they’ve been working to settle with the FTC on the issue of their reviews on Sephora.com. I take this personally as I carefully read reviews on Sephora.com and Amazon before purchase. However, they also released a really great face moisturizer this fall that hasn’t gotten as much attention. It seems their brand search interest hardly increased with the launch in September but sharply increased with the news of the FTC settlement.
I’ve tried many of the Sunday Riley products upon their lunch. My favorite so far has been their Tidal Water Cream which helped my melasma.
I’ve already reviewed the new Drunk Elephant Lala Retro with ceramides but now I’m comparing it to the new Sunday Riley ICE Cream with ceramides. Honestly, I hardly use the Drunk Elephant Protini moisturizer anymore, except as an eye cream for my sensitive skin around my eyes.
Sunday Riley ICE Cream Review
Not to sound too hyperbolic, but the Sunday Riley ICE cream is an AMAZING nighttime moisturizer – except the coconut scent is stronger than I’d like.
I first fell in love with ceramides with Dr. Jart Ceramide Cream years ago and I’ve continued to try most ceramide products since. I also tried their liquid ceramide concentrate but it wasn’t very good.
Over time, I found the updated serum version (vs the original gel) of the Drunk Elephant B-Hydra hyaluronic acid treatment to be a good source of hydrating ceramides for my skin. So I was even more excited when Drunk Elephant launched the new Lala Retro with ceramides this summer. Overall the LaLa but Better moisturizer is instead better than the original, but not as helpful to my skin as the new Sunday Riley ICE moisturizing cream.
Over the years I’ve learned the hard way 🙂 that my skin is dehydrated. When I use to use harsher physical exfoliators for my melasma, it made mt dehydration and dryness worse and didn’t improve my melasma and hyperpigmentation significantly. It wasn’t until I focused more on hydration and restoring my skin’s moisture barrier that my melasma improved with my skincare routines.
Sunday Riley ICE Cream Ingredients
Believe it or not, Sunday Riley’s ICE Cream moisturizer is thicker than the Drunk Elephant moisturizer LaLa Retro with ceramides. Or more so it’s stickier. My skin instantly absorbs some of the product but then a nice thin layer stays on and absorbs within 15 more minutes or so. Because of this, some may find the Sunday Riley ICE cream to be oily – I believe it is due to squalane (stay tuned for more info on my squalane experience).
As I’m purchasing a using new product I love to review information in my favorite ingredient sites – Inci Decoder. Sometimes I’ll check on Reddit first too but I haven’t found the discussions on their approach things quite with my standards or POV, although the skincare community is so helpful. I’m trying to be a better contributor there :).
Between the 3 ceramides, the omega 3 and 6 fatty acids, red algae and sodium hyaluronate, my skin is plumper and on cloud 9 whenever I use it. Leaving me feeling that the Drunk Elephant LaLa Retro is just meh.
Now while this luxurious ceramide cream works great for my sensitive skin, my friend Mandie tried it and it makes her face red and inflamed. So I highly recommend getting a sample of this product from Sephora before you buy.
1 Comment
Sarah
May 18, 2020 at 7:59 pmI prefer most of Sunday Riley’s products over Drunk Elephant, but the Ice ceramide cream did to me what it did to your friend. My skin became WILDLY inflamed and red and irritated, and I don’t consider myself to have sensitive skin. It was probably the most I’ve ever paid for a moisturizer. I keep meaning to write to the company to see if there’s anything they will do. Glad to hear that you had better luck with it! Thanks for your reviews.