A Review of Glamoxy Snake Serum by Rodial.
What's in this article...
Hailed by the press as “botox in a bottle” Glamoxy Snake Serum is touted as the modern woman’s answer to fine lines and wrinkles. However at around $144 a bottle, hype isn’t enough. Does Glamoxy snake serum actually work, or is it just a celebrity fad with no science behind it??
According to the Rodial website, Glamoxy is an “oxygenated, viper-inspired serum containing syn-ake; a neuro peptide” that is supposed to freeze the muscles that cause wrinkles and plump the face to make you look younger. In a culture that scoffs at ancient beauty rituals such as bathing in crocodile excrement, are we right to feel superior in our science based beauty or are we still being sold an expensive myth?
About my Wrinkles
Ok, I admit it; when it comes to beauty hype I am a pushover. It isn’t that I like paying a lot for my skincare, it’s just that I really don’t like needles so the idea of real botox fills me with abject terror. I know Botox is so popular it’s seen as like nothing more than getting a new haircut (where I live at least) but somehow the idea of someone injecting my face with a toxin still terrifies me.
Given this terror, if I can achieve the same results from rubbing a cream on my face then believe me, I will jump at the chance. However much I dislike needles I dislike my ever increasing wrinkles even less, so botox in a bottle sounds like a dream come true. If it works.
Ah, those wrinkles. Firstly, I’m in my lateish thirties. So whilst my skin isn’t peachy fresh exactly, I don’t yet have canyon like lines. Rather, my eyes look a little craggy around the corners, my forehead is ok, bar a couple of very shallow horizontal lines, and lately, in a certain light I have noticed a LOT of tiny little lines forming around my mouth. My lipstick doesn’t bleed into them yet, but stick around….
So in my case, the majority of my lines are probably what would be classified as “fine lines” rather than more established wrinkles. I need Glamoxy to work, but a fairly minimal result would probably seem like a great improvement to me.
As for the science behind Glamoxy, who can tell? They claim a major scientific breakthrough, but despite much pomp and posturing the Rodial website provides little in the way of actual scientific data as far as I can determine. Sadly in the case of this serum the science might well be there, but if it is, Rodial aren’t sharing it.
The bottle and the hype…
According to the press celebrities such as Kate Moss, Victoria Beckham and Cheryl Cole are avid users of Glamoxy Snake Serum, but it isn’t the pictures of them that make me part with my $160 as I click the button to confirm my order on Amazon.com. It’s the photo on my desk that does it. The one of me at 27, about ten years ago. The one where I look like a woman, but like a baby woman with alarmingly plumped up, luminous skin compared to how I look now. I still want to look like myself. Just like me a few years ago…
When the parcel arrives the bottle is remarkably unjazzy. I’m not sure what I was expecting but somehow when you spend that much you expect a little pomp and ceremony. So, no gold leaf, just a black, fairly minimalist bottle that does look faintly scientific. I like that. Science I can work with.
I had imagined a serum to be more runny I think, a little like the Frizz-Ease Serum that I slop onto my hair every morning. Glamoxy feels great though with an almost gel like texture that goes onto my face very smoothly, with a little going a surprisingly long way. Unlike some creams where they leave your skin feeling greasy, Glamoxy feels like it absorbs almost immediately.
The instructions I had read said not to take the product too close to the eye area. The only problem with that is that the eye area is where 90% of my wrinkles are so in the interests of science (!) I decided that by that they probably meant the upper eyelid area (you wouldn’t want that frozen- right?) and massaged it merrily into my crows feet. Fortunately this was completely without ill effect, although I didn’t go all the way up to the lash line, just in case.
The first thing I noticed was that my skin felt remarkably silky. It had a smoothness that I haven’t felt on my skin for many, many years. The texture of my skin reminded me of how I imagine very wealthy women’s skin must feel, the kind of women that stalk Manhattan, flitting from dermatologist to spa and back, beautifying themselves. Ok, so I might not be married to a trader and live on Fifth Avenue, but for $160 my face sure as hell felt like I did.
The wrinkle freezing nature of this product is supposed to be almost immediate, something which made me a little nervous when applying it for the first time. I wanted the botox effect, but I still wanted to be able to raise my eyebrows, and to speak! However, I needn’t have worried. Whilst I did think the muscles quickly had less mobility, particularly around my upper cheeks and the outer corners of my eyes where all my crows feet are, it was a subtle effect. Nobody is going to accuse you of being a botox queen whilst using this stuff!
The Results
I did wonder whether if you do have deeper wrinkles the muscle freezing and relaxing effects might be more obvious. It’s certainly possible. Nonetheless after a few days use I started to notice a real improvement in my skin. It was a subtle difference, lots of little things, but a difference nonetheless.
Firstly, my skin looked more even somehow. The small areas of discoloration that I normally have looked less. Also, my skin seemed to have more of a glow to it, to be more luminous; it just looked healthier without me being able to define exactly what it is about it that made it look so good.
Around my mouth the fine lines also looked to be improving, although when you peer at yourself fifty times a day in your hallway mirror trying to establish whether there has been any change it’s hard to detect every tiny change.
It wasn’t until about two weeks into using the cream that I got my first compliment (other than those from my husband, and he doesn’t count- he’s biased!) Sitting in the chair chatting to my hairdresser I made reference to my husband’s fortieth birthday at which point she told me she was surprised I was married to someone so much older. I contained the whoops just enough to establish that she apparently thought I was “about 27” something no one has told me for a very, very long time! Not only did I give her an enormous tip, I went home to kiss my bottle of Glamoxy.
Since then I have had many compliments along the “you look well” vein. I have also noticed a definite improvement in my skin in pore size, clarity and, hallelujah, the number of fine lines. To be honest, Glamoxy hasn’t eliminated my wrinkles entirely, there are still some there, but I am convinced that there are less than there used to be and that I do look younger.
Would I buy Glamoxy again? Definitely. Don’t get me wrong, it’s expensive, even for how well it works. But then, botox is expensive too and by all accounts a lot more uncomfortable. For my $144 I am more than happy with the results and even happier knowing that it is being hailed as the “safe” alternative to botox. If the science is in the results then basting your face in venomous snake serum seems to work.
Where To Buy Glamoxy
One of the problems with a “Cult” beauty buy like this that has received a lot of press is that it sells out fast. The place where I bought mine was Amazon.com as they seem to have the most consistent stock and also be cheaper than other stockists too. For readers in the UK Amazon UK also generally has stock although depending on the current exchange rate it can still be cheaper sometimes to purchase it via the US Amazon.
The following links will take you to the correct pages where you can get more information about Glamoxy and check whether it is the right product for you.
Are There Alternatives To Glamoxy?
The most obvious alternative to Glamoxy is botox, although many people (myself included) don’t want to consider botox as an option. We still want great results though. All of the following are also cult products that have huge followings and are said to have fantastic results on wrinkles. In truth, the only one I have tried is creme de la mer, which I love, but some people do complain of finding it a little heavy, particularly for young skins.
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