Hyaluronic Acid

ingredient to know

Hyaluronic Acid

Plumps skin with hydration, helping it look and feel better instantly.

Scroll to learn more.

ingredient to know

Hyaluronic Acid

Plumps skin with hydration, helping it look and feel better instantly.

Scroll to learn more.
Don’t let the name fool you. Hyaluronic acid isn’t an acid in the way you may think. Unlike salicylic, glycolic, and lactic acids, hyaluronic acid doesn’t remove dead cells from your skin. On the contrary, it actually adds something absolutely vital to optimal skin health: water.

Why Your Skin Needs It
This powerful humectant floods your skin with hydration and helps strengthen your skin’s natural moisture barrier. As we age, supplies of hyaluronic acid diminish. Replenishing your skin’s reservoir helps maintain a plump, dewy, and healthy condition.

The Clinique Expertise
This moisture-binding ingredient has the unique ability to hold 1,000 times its weight in water, helping to create a “moisture reservoir” for ideal hydration. This formula includes two different molecular weights of hyaluronic acid.

What Our Clinique Derm Says
“Hyaluronic acid is a must-have, regardless of your skin type,” says Dr. Michelle Henry, a board-certified dermatologist based in New York City. “It plumps up your skin with hydration and makes fine lines and wrinkles appear less obvious.”

What You’ll See On The Ingredient List
Sodium Hyaluronate

Skin Concerns
· Dehydration
· Dullness
· Lines & wrinkles

Nature’s most powerful water magnet.
This ingredient’s super power? It can hold 1,000 times its own weight in water. (That’s sort of like you holding up a whale. Crazy, right?). Hyaluronic acid is naturally present within your entire body and has the consistency of a viscous gel. It acts as a lubricant to help your joints, muscles, and nerves function smoothly. Think of it like the oil in a car engine.

So what specifically does it do for your skin? This supreme humectant not only draws vital water in to your skin, but also holds on to it and prevents moisture loss. This provides both immediate and long-term hydration benefits, so your skin can maintain a plump, hydrated, radiant, and smooth appearance. “Hyaluronic acid is a dermatologist favourite ingredient because it plumps up your skin with hydration, giving it a youthful, dewy look. It also makes fine dry lines and wrinkles appear less obvious,” explains Clinique Derm Pro Dr. Michelle Henry, a board-certified dermatologist based in New York City.

The caulk in the leaky roof.
Hyaluronic acid also serves another key function in optimal skin health. It strengthens your moisture barrier, which is the outermost layer of your skin and your first line of defense against environmental aggressors. Think of your moisture barrier as the roof of a house. When it’s intact, it protects everything inside, but when it’s leaky, damage occurs. When your moisture barrier is intact, your skin appears and feels smooth, soft, and plump. If your moisture barrier is damaged, your skin looks dry and rough. (Think of dry skin cells flaking off your skin as a tile slipping off the roof of the house.) The more damaged your moisture barrier, the harder it is to reverse issues like dehydration, wrinkles, hyperpigmentation, and breakouts. Hyaluronic acid fills in the spaces between your skin’s essential support structures, keeping your moisture barrier strong and cushioned.

Who needs hyaluronic acid?
"Hyaluronic acid is a must-have in your moisturier, regardless of your skin type, because it’s the ultimate hydrator,” say Dr. Henry. Every skin type would look its most youthful, plump, and radiant with an optimised moisture barrier. Your moisture barrier can be compromised daily by environmental factors like indoor heating, sun exposure, dehydration, pollution, and dirt. Additionally, your body naturally loses about one pint of water a day, which can affect your skin’s level of hydration. Also keep in mind that your ability to retain water and naturally produce hyaluronic acid declines as you age, which can exacerbate increased dryness, fine lines, wrinkles, and sagging. (Babies have such soft, plump skin because they have a ton of hyaluronic acid in their cute, pinchable bodies.)

Bottom line: Make sure hyaluronic acid is part of your skin care regimen.
Hyaluronic acid is a key ingredient in many moisturisers and serums and should be used day and night. But don’t be scared that this type of intense hydration has to come in a thick cream. Case in point: Moisture Surge™ 100H Auto-Replenishing Hydrator, which has a lightweight gel texture. This serum-in-a-jar actually has two types of hyaluronic acid—one that works immediately on the uppermost layers of your skin, and another variant that penetrates deeper. “The formula features different sizes of hyaluronic acid, so that some are able to penetrate and hydrate deeper into the skin while others plump the surface of the skin,” explains Dr. Henry. Use it daily for immediate and long-lasting hydration, or tap it over makeup for a midday shot of extra moisture. Another hyaluronic acid superstar: Smart Broad Spectrum SPF 15 Custom Moisturizer, which is not only loaded with it, but it also helps reduce the four major signs of ageing with its powerful blend of peptides, proteins, and antioxidants.

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A master class in skincare.
Tell us your skin goal and our Consultant will guide you in a personalised, 1:1 skincare consultation to create a customised routine that gets results.

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The Clinique Formula: 
Performance, Safety, Science

Clinique launched the first-ever line of dermatologist-developed skin care in 1968. The promise: to deliver effective, safe, clinically proven formulas that create great skin. We avoid using allergens, irritants and ingredients in ways that could potentially harm your skin.

Proven results are from how multiple ingredients are combined using the latest scientific breakthroughs to achieve maximum results without irritation. As science evolves, we continuously re-examine ingredients with our researchers, formulators, clinicians, and guiding board-certified dermatologists.

Allergy tested. 100% fragrance free.