Babor, if you didn’t know, is an indulgent German spa brand available at selected spas and salons across South Africa. In the past I’ve chatted about their iconic Hy-Ol cleanser and reviewed one of their shower gels in a blog post that you can check out over here.

Today, however, I’m going to take a closer look at their HSR Lifting cream.

We all know I have an issue with jar packaging but Babor’s HSR Lifting Cream is so pretty even I’d have a hard time decanting its contents into something that’ll stop it from oxidizing. Don’t you think it looks like a giant Ferrero Rocher ball?

Anyway, the cream makes use of a grouping of ingredients that Babor refer to as their ‘HSR Lifting Integral Complex’ that are as follows:

• Multitendyn to activate the formation of collagen fibres.
• Liftosolution to form a thin film on the skin’s surface that then contracts upon drying to help give your face a temporary lift. (You know, kind of like how Clarins’ Beauty Flash Balm works…)
• Glyco-Stop to prevent the glycation (hardening) of your collagen fibres, something that occurs gradually as you age.

Now as much as I like Babor I hate it when brands give their ingredients made-up names. What the heck is Multitendyn? Is it plain old vitamin C mixed with vitamin E? I mean, both of those ingredients encourage collagen production. So, in order to find out more, I scanned HSR Lifting Cream’s ingredients list for collagen encouragers and was happy to find a nice mix that included Shea butter, carnosine, algae, soy and pea extract plus vitamin E.

As far as Liftosolution goes, I’m not sure what all is in that but found pullulan in the mix which is a film-forming agent that contracts after drying so that and possible other ingredients are what Babor’s relying on to give your skin a nice, toit – albeit temporary – look.

Other ingredients worth a mention include hydrating macadamia nut, sweet almond and mango seed oils and hyaluronic acid.

Texture-wise, the cream’s almost a bit on the gel-creme side in that it absorbed well and didn’t encourage my combination skin to grease up. I could totally get away with wearing it during the day thanks to a few sweeps of blotting powder on my T-panel but chose to use it at night due to the lack of sunscreen. I didn’t really notice an instant firming effect but my skin definitely did look more plump and the fine dehydration lines I tend to get around my chin area (weirdly) were blitzed on contact. Oh! And like all Babor products its got a lovely floral scent thanks to a fair amount of parfum. This might irritate sensitive skins but wasn’t an issue for me at all, despite the fact that I use lots and lots of retinol.

Want to give it a bash yourself? To find a Babor stockist near you call (011) 467 0110.

Love, love

Leigh