Road Test: Does Go-To Skincare’s new Very Luxe Face Cream live up to the hype?

Go-To goes luxe.

The older I get, the more streamlined my skincare routine becomes. Every other area of life becomes more complex with each passing year, so when I can keep something simple and curated I’ll always opt to do so.

After years of writing about beauty, I’m well acquainted with the ingredients and formulas my skin loves and those that send it into a tailspin, which means a prospective addition to my routine needs to tick a lot of boxes. A non-negotiable in my routine, aside from vitamin C, retinal, daily moisturiser and sunblock, is a thick, rich face cream to apply at night to lock the products underneath in.

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I’ve tried several over the last few years, and I’ve often found you need to be willing to pay a premium to get the best of the best (La Mer anyone?). So when Australian brand Go-To Skincare sent its Luxe Face Cream to our office, my interest was piqued. Housed in a rose gold glass container, it looks markedly different from the peachy-pink and white Go-To packaging anyone with a passing interest in beauty will be familiar with.

Described as a “deeply replenishing moisturiser designed to make your skin feel firmer, smoother and plumper”, Luxe Face Cream is formulated with three types of ceramides, vegan collagen and pink algae. Impressed by both the expensive feeling packaging and the ingredients list, I took it home with me to put it to the test.

So what’s it like?

I recently ran out of Emma Lewisham’s Supernatural Face Crème which I was particularly fond of, so Go-To’s cream had some big shoes to fill. I applied it as the last step in my skincare routine each night, after my eye cream and serum or retinal (I alternate between the two throughout the week) and as someone prone to dry skin, I knew my skin would drink this product up.

It definitely feels more luxurious than other Go-To products I’ve tried and it applies like a dream, leaving no weird, oily residue like some rich face creams tend to. An important consideration for me is whether a product contains any ingredients that might cause my skin to break out. I’m fairly acne free these days, but a few days of applying a product with ingredients my skin doesn’t like can trigger an outbreak.

After a few weeks of using Very Luxe Face Cream, I’ve remained breakout free and I put that down to its ingredients list, particularly how ceramide-heavy it is and the natural ingredients it features like Australian kangaroo paw flower and pink algae.

Ceramides help support your skin barrier (and if you’ve ever experienced an impaired barrier, you’ll know just how important this is), minimising moisture loss. My daytime moisturiser already has ceramides, but my skin’s felt particularly well-hydrated since adding ceramides to my nighttime routine too.

Does it work?

Being almost 30, I’m still relatively wrinkle-free so can’t put the product’s anti-ageing claims to the test. But Go-To did conduct a 12-week clinical study of Very Luxe Face Cream with 30 participants, and 100 per cent of the participants said their skin looked more youthful and their skin tone more even.

Retailing for $79, it sits at the more expensive end of Go-To Skincare’s product range, but when it comes to other rich face creams on the market it’s on the more affordable side. If you’re after a super hydrating, ceramide-heavy product that’s ideal for applying at night overtop of your other products, then Very Luxe Face Cream is worth a try.

Find out more about Very Luxe Face Cream here.