Beauty Tested, Beast Approved is a grooming blog by Grady Laird. His wife, Amy (the beauty director of Allure magazine) has tried thousands of products over the years—mostly on herself, but often on the human guinea pig who sleeps next to her. For every Beast Approved entry, head here.

My home bathroom has two distinct lighting options: You can choose the warm, ego-boosting glow of the incandescent bulbs...or the harsh, ego-wilting (but honest) glare of the fluorescents. I usually go with the former, but the latter does comes in handy when you need to take a real hard look at what’s really staring back at you. When I did just that a couple months ago, I wasn’t happy with what I saw. My skin looked dry, wrinkled, and blotchy—way more damaged than it should for someone in his early thirties. Something needed to be done.

To counteract the old-man-ization of my face, I decided to try an anti-aging product that recently landed on my desk: Lab Series Max LS Overnight Renewal Serum ($55 at labseries.com). I’ve always been a little skeptical about finding the fountain of youth in a tube, but this stuff quickly won me over. For starters, it’s a damn good moisturizer—I applied the super-light and subtle-smelling serum after my evening face wash, and it instantly soothed and hydrated my skin. I liked the feel of it so much, in fact, that I started using it in the morning, too. After about three weeks, I started to see long-term results: Thanks to the formula’s pitch-perfect mix of salicylic acid, antioxidants, and cell-boosters, my skin looked smoother, more even-toned, and yep, younger, too. No more hiding from the flourescent bulbs of truth.

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