The 10 Best Hydrating Serums to Instantly Quench Dry, Thirsty Skin
Serums are a skincare staple, but finding the right one takes a keen understanding of your skin, what it needs, and the ingredients typically found in them. Take, for example, hydrating serums. These skin boosters can enhance the effectiveness of other products in your routine while improving hydration levels for a smooth, plump, and youthful glow that we all strive for. A welcome addition to your existing skincare routine, hydrating serums make it easy to deliver a dose of active ingredients to the skin for results you can see and feel. Curious as to which ones get our stamp of approval? Keep reading to learn about the best hydrating serums that our editors reach for over and over to up the ante of their skincare routines.
Our Top Picks:
Best for Dry Skin: Dr. Barbara Sturm Hyaluronic Acid Best for Reviving Dull Skin: Eminence Organic Skin Care Strawberry Rhubarb Hyaluronic Hydrator Best for Supporting the Skin Barrier:Peter Thomas Roth Water Drench Hyaluronic Glow Serum Best for Mature Skin: MZ Skin Bio-Placenta Hyaluronic Acid Serum Best for Damaged Skin: Arcona Hydrating Serum Best for Acne-Prone Skin: Irene Forte Skincare Phytomelatonin Rejuvenating Serum Best for Post-Procedure: Lancer Skincare Ultra Hydrating Serum with Hyaluronic Complex-7 Best for Anti-Aging: 111Skin Repair Serum NAC Y2 Best for Plumping the Skin: SkinCeuticals Hyaluronic Acid Intensifier Multi-Glycan Best for Saggy Skin: SkinMedica TNS Advanced+ Serum
What are Hydrating Serums?
Hydrating serums are a must-have for maintaining healthy, optimally moisturized skin without a greasy, slippery, or oily feel. Unlike moisturizing creams, which tend to be heavier, hydrating serums help to hydrate the skin, making the surface appear smoother, plumper, and with a natural glow. Plus, a good hydrating serum can double as a makeup primer.
One reason people turn to hydrating serums again and again is that they help keep the skin barrier intact. When the skin is hydrated and able to retain enough moisture, it’s better equipped to keep out irritants, toxins, and bacteria, which can deplete the skin barrier and render the skin dry, red, or irritated.
Shop the Best Hydrating Serums
Best Hydrating Serum for Dry Skin: Dr. Barbara Sturm Hyaluronic Acid
$325.00
This award-winning hyaluronic acid serum is a must-have if plumper, healthier, and optimally hydrated skin sits high on your beauty wish list. Packed with a multitude of different hyaluronic molecules to moisturize the skin's surface as well as its deeper layers, this non-sticky formula is clinically proven to slow skin aging, plump lines and wrinkles, and restore suppleness and a natural glow to the skin.
Key Ingredients: Hyaluronic acid, purslane extract
Skin Type: All
Skin Benefits(s): Activates and improves the skin’s natural levels of hyaluronic acid, collagen, and elastin, helps enhance skin hydration, promotes a firmer, more youthful-looking complexion by boosting natural collagen production, reduces the appearance of visible lines and wrinkles
Beauty Insider Tip: Always let the serum fully absorb into the skin before applying the next step in your skincare routine.
Best for Reviving Dull Skin: Eminence Organic Skin Care Strawberry Rhubarb Hyaluronic Hydrator
$65.00
Vegan skincare aficionados will fall head over heels in love with this gel-cream hydrating serum, which quickly breathes new life into dull-looking skin. With its lightweight texture and dewy finish, this intense hydrator locks in moisture, keeping the skin looking healthy, fresh, and luminous throughout the day.
Key Ingredients: Botanical hyaluronic acid complex, panthenol, plant sugars, strawberry, rhubarb
Skin Type: All
Skin Benefits(s): Deeply hydrates the skin and prevents moisture loss, protects the skin’s natural moisture barrier, provides a gentle exfoliating effect while removing impurities for added brightness, leaves skin looking and feeling plump, refreshed, and more luminous
Beauty Insider Tip: For an extra dose of much-needed hydration, apply a thick layer of the serum to areas that are inherently dry and dull.
Best for Supporting the Skin Barrier: Peter Thomas Roth Water Drench Hyaluronic Glow Serum
$72.00
A quick and easy way to drench the skin in much-needed hydration for long-lasting improvement is with a supercharged hydrating serum, like this one. Not only does this fragrance-free formula leave the skin well moisturized, plump, and with a healthy, dewy glow, but it also leaves the complexion
Key Ingredients: Hyaluronic acid complex, ceramide complex, HydraFence
Skin Type: All
Skin Benefits(s): Helps improve the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, gives the skin a healthy, refreshed glow, increases moisture within the skin, and plumps the skin without any greasy residue
Beauty Insider Tip: To hydrate and plump the area under the eyes, apply the serum to the orbital bone and massage it in well.
Best for Mature Skin: MZ Skin Bio-Placenta Hyaluronic Acid Serum
$175.00
Say goodbye to stubborn fine lines with this deeply hydrating, power-packed serum. Featuring a blend of skin-friendly ingredients that restore moisture to the skin, this unique formula works diligently to improve the skin’s tone and texture, resulting in a smoother, dewier, plumper, and more youthful appearance.
Key Ingredients: Hyaluronic acid, biomimetic placenta, M5RX
Skin Type: Mature and dry
Skin Benefits(s): Improves skin tone and texture, firms the skin so lines and wrinkles are less visible, provides a plumping and smoothing effect, and helps with discoloration
Beauty Insider Tip: After applying the serum, top it off with moisturizer and sunscreen for the best results.
Best for Damaged Skin: Arcona Hydrating Serum
$58.00
Made in small batches with cold processing and free from harmful additives, this super-hydrating serum helps replenish essential lipids to transform dry, damaged skin, making it perfectly balanced and optimally moisturized. Whether you use this serum alone or with your favorite moisturizer, the skin will look, feel, and act rejuvenated the more often you apply it.
Key Ingredients: Glycerin, honey lipids, allantoin, hyaluronic acid, witch hazel water, aloe leaf juice powder
Skin Type: Dry
Skin Benefits(s): Helps reverse the signs of environmentally damaged and dehydrated skin, restores a natural radiance to the skin while moisturizing and plumping it
Beauty Insider Tip: For a cooling sensation upon application, store the serum in your refrigerator.
Best for Acne-Prone Skin: Irene Forte Skincare Phytomelatonin Rejuvenating Serum
$290.00
Target breakouts, enlarged pores, redness, hyperpigmentation, and dryness with this all-in-one rich serum formulated with a patented extract of phytomelatonin. Perfect for calming and soothing inflamed and irritated skin, the formula also helps reduce the appearance of wrinkles while increasing skin elasticity for noticeably improved skin in as little as four weeks.
Key Ingredients: Alpine plant melatonin, vitamin E
Skin Type: All
Skin Benefits(s): Helps reduce the appearance of wrinkles, brown spots, UV damage, redness, breakouts, and enlarged pores, increases skin elasticity, calms and soothes the skin
Beauty Insider Tip: The serum is safe to use on even the most sensitive skin and has been tested on it for a 96-hour period.
Best for Post-Procedure: Lancer Skincare Ultra Hydrating Serum with Hyaluronic Complex-7
$95.00
Restore moisture to the skin with this daily, at-home treatment, which helps combat dehydration and discomfort. Thanks to its lightweight texture and seven different molecular weights of hyaluronic acid, it penetrates all layers of the skin, restoring barrier function and reducing transepidermal water loss.
Key Ingredients: Hyaluronic acid, olive extract, ceramide complex, disodium acetyl glucosamine phosphate
Skin Type: Dry, dull
Skin Benefits(s): Hydrates the skin, reduces sensitivity post-procedure, locks in natural moisture and prevents water evaporation, repairs the skin’s natural barrier function and reduces water loss, provides a plumping effect
Beauty Insider Tip: Layer the serum on after cosmetic treatments and procedures that can sensitize the skin to restore moisture and balance.
Best for Anti-Aging: 111Skin Repair Serum NAC Y2
$260.00
Future-proof your skin and combat common signs of aging with this skin-plumping and smoothing serum. Perfect for reducing dryness, skin irritations, laxity, and redness, this glow-restorer builds up the skin’s resilience and accelerates cellular repair by boosting the body’s natural production of the antioxidant glutathione.
Key Ingredients: Glutathione, vitamin C, escin
Skin Type: All
Skin Benefits(s): Reduces the look of fine lines and redness in the skin, hydrates the skin so it's renewed and rejuvenated
Beauty Insider Tip: Originally created to treat trauma after surgery, this serum is perfect to use after clinical treatments to help heal the skin
Best for Plumping the Skin: SkinCeuticals Hyaluronic Acid Intensifier Multi-Glycan
$120.00
If a lack of volume and fullness has you considering fillers, try this hyaluronic acid-based plumping serum instead. Clinically proven to plump the skin’s surface with the equivalent of 1cc of hyaluronic acid for added volume, the hydrating formula also works wonders to define facial contours and fill in fine lines for enhanced definition and an overall more youthful appearance.
Key Ingredients: Proxylane, hyaluronic acid, postbiotic ferments, licorice root extract
Skin Type: All
Skin Benefits(s): Instantly plumps skin, improves skin radiance and hydration levels, fills in fine lines and wrinkles, improves the skin’s natural hyaluronic acid levels for enhanced smoothness, softness, and plumpness
Beauty Insider Tip: Pair the serum with retinol to further enhance the anti-aging benefits of each product.
Best for Saggy Skin: SkinMedica TNS Advanced+ Serum
$295.00
Restore a natural, youthful firmness to your skin with this next-generation skin-rejuvenating serum, ideal for lax skin that has lost its glow. Packed with growth factors to help firm and tone the skin, visible improvements can be seen in just two weeks with consistent use.
Key Ingredients: Growth factors, peptides, marine extract, green microalgae, botanical agent
Skin Type: All
Skin Benefits(s): Visibly smoothes wrinkles and fine lines, improves the look of aging skin
Beauty Insider Tip: To treat saggy skin on the neck and chest, apply the serum from the face down to the neck and then to the chest to help firm it up.
FAQs
What ingredients to look for in hydrating serums?
There are a plethora of different ingredients in hydrating serums, but the key ones to look for are those that are known to help moisturize the skin—anything else in the formula is a bonus. Some of the more commonly used ingredients in hydrating serums include hyaluronic acid, ceramides, glycerin, panthenol, beta-glucan, linoleic acid, antioxidants, and vitamin E. The key is to find a hydrating serum rich in humectants (like the ones listed above), which help the skin retain water, allowing it to stay hydrated and plump.
How to use hydrating serums in your skincare routine?
Integrating a hydrating serum into your existing skincare routine is straightforward. The easiest way to use one is on clean skin, after cleansing (and toning, if that's a step you practice), but before applying any heavy creams and moisturizers. Since hydrating serums are inherently light, they are easily absorbed into the skin when layered on top of other serums, creams, and ultimately sunscreen.
Is hyaluronic acid or niacinamide better for hydration?
Navigating through the world of skincare ingredients can be tricky, and two that are often considered for hydration purposes are hyaluronic acid and niacinamide. While totally different from one another, both are effective (depending on your skin issues and goals), but if you're looking to boost the skin's moisture content and fight the signs of dry skin, hyaluronic acid is the way to go. That's because the naturally occurring humectant attracts water to the skin and retains it, resulting in increased moisture levels. In contrast, niacinamide is better suited for calming redness and irritation that persist from acne and sensitivities, as well as brightening dark spots.
The Bottom Line
Elise Minton Tabin is an award-winning beauty journalist, editor, and beauty expert with more than 16 years of experience. She previously held the title of Executive Beauty Editor at NewBeauty magazine, where she reported on beauty, plastic surgery, anti-aging, health and wellness. She was also instrumental in the launch of the beauty supplement brand Hush & Hush. A self-professed beauty junkie and retinol and sunscreen pusher, Elise knows what’s new, what works and who’s the best to go for every procedure under the sun. Follow Elise on Facebook, Instagram, and on her beauty blog, elisetabin.com
