I Tried A Liquid "Face Lift" Serum and It's Transforming My Skin

Gravity meets a formidable opponent.

la prairie skin caviar liquid lift
(Image credit: Hearst Owned)

Just when you think you’ve got your skin figured out, it devises some fun new way to throw you for a loop. I spent decades learning how to cope with my adult acne, only to get it under control in my late 30s and then have gravity come at me with a vengeance. Suddenly I went from being a smug expert in all things pore-clearing to frantically trying to figure out how to rebuild my collagen matrix.

So, you can imagine how my eyes lit up when the news broke that La Prairie, the iconic Swiss brand born from 90 years of research on cellular science, was re-formulating its beloved Skin Caviar Liquid Lift to be even more potent. The new Liquid Lift now features two powerful forms of caviar—Caviar Premier and Caviar Absolute—that the brand claims can enhance firmness, provide a lifted look, and help restore skin’s density for added volume.

Before we go into the specifics of my Liquid Lift experience, though, a quick primer on skin aging. Our skin’s structure is made up of two main types of proteins called collagen and elastin. Collagen is what keeps our skin plump and smooth, while elastin is what keeps it tight and bouncy. As we age, those two naturally begin to break down and separate, which causes your skin to lose volume and elasticity (read: your face gets hollowed out and begins to droop). So topical skincare products that help stimulate collagen and elastin production can help your skin appear lifted and firm for longer.

La Prairie has managed to do that in a very high-tech way that is also true to the brand’s heritage. They use extracts of caviar from sturgeon raised in spring water in the Swiss Alps, close to the La Prairie labs where the ingredient transformation process takes place. From that caviar, two distinct ingredients are created.

I noticed an immediate lifting effect after I applied it and my skin only improved after that.

Caviar naturally features an array of lipids, proteins, peptides, and carbohydrates that are essential for skin health. La Prairie created two iterations—Caviar Premier and Caviar Absolute—to provide those building blocks of youthful skin.

The formula is given even more of an anti-aging boost with La Prairie’s Exclusive Cellular Complex, which can help the skin to renew and repair itself more efficiently, essentially enabling cells to behave more like those of younger skin.

la prairie

(Image credit: Courtesy of La Prairie)

The experience of using Skin Caviar Liquid Lift is a study in poshness. The sleek bottle has a clear window where you can observe the golden caviar beads suspended. It’s actually a dual-chamber with a milky emulsion that you combine by pressing an activator button before your first use, shaking it vigorously until the beads transform into a pearlescent white serum. I applied two pumps into my hand, then used my fingers to smooth and press the serum into my face and neck, avoiding my eye area. It absorbed almost instantaneously and didn’t leave behind a sticky residue or film.

As promised, I noticed an immediate lifting effect after I applied it and my skin only improved after that. I’ve been using the serum religiously every morning and evening for the past two weeks and watched in delight as the serum has subtly visibly reshaped the contours of my face, specifically around my mouth and jawline, where I had started to see the faintest trace of jowls forming. It’s also helped add the appearance of more volume, which has in turn made the furrows in my brow and around my mouth look blurred and less pronounced.

Knowing that skincare results only get more effective the more consistently you use a product, I’m excited to see how Skin Caviar Liquid Lift continues to transform my skin over these next few weeks. With this silky serum and its dual caviar complex on my side, I’m confident my collagen and elastin are in expert hands.