5 Reasons I Feel Good About Letting My Teenage Daughter Use Clinique Moisture Surge 100H Auto-Replenishing Hydrator

And I use the hydrating, derm-tested formula, too.

It started when she was a young teen. My daughter, Allie, came home from school and said, “Mom, shouldn’t I be using products on my skin?”

“What kind of products?” I asked, thinking maybe she’d had a reaction to something, a rash or an itch, and needed something to treat it.

“You know, products,” she said, not very helpfully. “Like cleanser and moisturizer. All my friends use products.”

I thought she might be exaggerating, until a few weeks later while backstage at a play she was in, I saw the other girls’ makeup bags overflowing with moisturizers, luminizing lotions, and concealers. Then I stumbled across more than a few makeup tutorials online hosted by tweens and teens whose skincare routines and makeup bags put mine to shame.

I didn’t think my daughter’s perfect skin, glowy with youth, needed any help. But at the same time, I reasoned, you only get one face. Maybe she was right. It’s never too early to start nourishing your skin; after all, I’d been forcing her to wear sunscreen since she was a baby.

I spent many years working as a beauty editor, writing about what works on mature skin. I knew that at her age, Allie didn’t need potentially harsh wrinkle-fighting ingredients like retinols.

But I was willing to experiment. I bought her the least expensive face lotion I could find at a discount store. A few days later, she broke out in whiteheads for the first time ever.

At her next physical, I asked the pediatrician what skincare products she should start with. “Just sunscreen and, if she wants, a moisturizer,” the doctor said, warning against a too-much-too-soon approach. Slowly, I homed in on what I was willing to put on the baby face of my not-quite-a-baby. I decided to look to Clinique, a company I trust for tested, proven formulas.

The “product” both of us now love using is Clinique Moisture Surge 100H Auto-Replenishing Hydrator. Here’s why it works for us.

Like all Clinique products, Moisture Surge 100H Auto-Replenishing Hydrator is dermatologist-tested. It’s fragrance-free and appropriate for my daughter’s sensitive skin and mine.

When you’re a middle-aged mom like me, and your dewy, wrinkle-free teenager comes to you and says they want skincare, your first instinct might be to yell, “But your skin is perfect! You have no wrinkles, no discoloration!”

But Allie does deal with dehydration. She walks to and from school through the New York City streets, absorbing pollution before she gets to class, and then sits in air-conditioning or radiator heat. Moisture Surge 100H Auto-Replenishing Hydrator is packed with hydrating ingredients like hyaluronic acid—an ingredient I remember from my beauty-editor days as the gold standard in terms of moisturizing—and aloe bioferment, plus a blend of antioxidants vitamins C and E to fight the effects of pollution.

The brand says the gel-cream makes skin feel hydrated in just three seconds, and I can attest that it’s true. When I asked how she liked the moisturizer, Allie texted back, “It’s rlly smooth and nice to apply, it’s not clumpy or sticky.”

“My skin feels softer now,” Allie also texted. “Especially when I wake up after using it overnight.” I know what she means: I reach for my pot of Moisture Surge 100H Auto-Replenishing Hydrator morning and night, as well as when I get up from my desk and feel like I need a glow boost.

Not only have both of us seen our skin improve, both immediately and over time, but I like knowing that I introduced my daughter to a science-backed beauty brand with a consistent track record that she can continue to turn to as she gets older. Just as I have.

Allie wears some of my favorite jeans from back in the day that don’t fit me anymore. But aside from that, she’s got her style and I’ve got mine. So it’s nice to have something we both like, that makes each of us feel and look good. This is one thing moms and daughters can agree on—as long as we each have our own jar, so we don’t start arguing over who’s using it up.

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