Check Your Routine
Your serum is probably fine. Run these five checks to find where your routine actually fails.
1. After cleansing, does your skin feel tight or squeaky?
Tightness means your cleanser is stripping. Stripped skin over-produces oil, and everything you apply afterwards has to fight through it. Cleansing should clear the way — not sand it down.
2. Does your serum leave a film on your skin?
A film means it is sitting on top instead of absorbing. That is rarely the serum's fault. It is what was — or wasn't — cleared before it.
3. Is your skin dry again an hour after moisturising?
Moisture is escaping. Without a seal step at the end, what you applied evaporates instead of staying in the skin.
4. Did you switch to "stronger" products but see less?
Strength does not fix sequence. A stronger serum on uncleared skin is just a more expensive film.
5. Does your routine have more than five steps?
More steps means more chances the sequence is wrong. Three steps, in the right sequence, outperform ten in the wrong one.
The fix is the sequence, not the strength.
Step 1 — Cleanse without stripping, so skin is clear and calm.
Step 2 — Treat on cleared skin, so actives finally absorb.
Step 3 — Seal it in, so what absorbed stays there.