Review: AmorePacific Future Response Age Defense Serum

Up til recently, my experience with AmorePacific was pretty much limited to their enzyme peel, which I use regularly and like. However, I recently made an order from Sephora and they had a promo running where you could get a trial size serum for free with your order. This was one of the ones listed, and I figured hey, why not? It certainly sounded interesting.

Product Description: A gel-textured serum in a pump bottle, with a heavy perfumey scent. It certainly feels like a gel when it goes on, but absorbs relatively quickly. The scent takes a while to fade, but does eventually. It took about two pumps out of the mini-bottle to get enough product for my whole face – about a pea-sized amount – but I don’t know what that would equate to for the full-size bottle.



I was initially using this product only at night, but moved to both AM and PM once I was sure it wasn’t going to break me out. The good news is that it really didn’t have any negative effects, which is surprising for something so heavily fragranced. No added redness or irritation to speak of.



However, it also didn’t really create any visible benefits for me. Maybe it added a little moisturization, I’m not sure. Now, this is primarily marketed as an anti-aging product, so maybe one should be looking for improvements in terms of decades rather than days or weeks. That said, I’m reluctant to use a product solely based on the expectation that it’ll pay off in the (very) long term, without seeing some kind of short-term benefit as well.



I felt even more strongly about that once I looked up the full-size product and saw how expensive it is. I knew AmorePacific was a pricier brand than most, as the enzyme peel I get from them is about $50 a bottle. The peel, however, comes in a large bottle and lasts forever. This serum is $160 a bottle…and each bottle is only 30 mL. For those (like me) who aren’t great with units of measurement offhand, that’s about the size of the little travel shampoos they give you in hotels. I thought it must have been a mistake on the first place I saw that listed, but I checked several websites, and there it is. The little sample I got was 1/10 of the size of the full product, and I’ve nearly gone through it in a week.



Overall: In terms of effects, there’s certainly nothing bad about this product. However, unless it’s literally made of unicorn tears, I can’t think of anything that would justify the ratio of the price to the amount you get. Would I use this product if I were able to get it for free again? Sure, probably. Would I ever buy it? Definitely not.

Review: 2.5/5

1: “I will never use this product again and intend to immediately throw it away or return it”

2: “I’m not a big fan of the product, but I’ll probably use it once in a while”



3: “I’ll use up what I have, but don’t plan to repurchase this product”

4: “I really like the product, and will keep using it unless I find a better replacement”

5: “I absolutely love this product, and will probably never look for a replacement unless it’s discontinued or the formula changes”