The Neck Cream Edit, From a Stretch-Mark Accident to Red Light Devices

The Neck Cream Edit, From a Stretch-Mark Accident to Red Light Devices

A neck cream exists because the skin below your chin is thinner and drier than the skin on your face. Here are the neck and décolleté creams, the serums and masks for extra lift, and the devices that work alongside them.

The best-known neck cream in America started out on stomachs. Time reported that Klein-Becker stumbled on StriVectin's effect on fine facial lines by accident in 2002, when the company started testing a new stretch-mark cream. There were no directions on the tube, so some testers used it on their faces and found it smoothed their skin, which the company called "just dumb luck." The cream made its debut in 2002 at GNC, a store better known for muscle-building supplements, and in 2003 its print ads asked whether it might be better than Botox. Today the brand makes a neck cream on purpose. StriVectin TL Advanced Tightening Neck Cream PLUS is designed to visibly tighten and firm and to soften the look of horizontal neck lines.

The neck gets its own formulas because the skin there is different. Dr. Barbara Sturm notes that the skin below the chin has fewer sebaceous glands than the face, which makes it thinner and often dehydrated, and her Neck & Decollete Cream uses shea butter, mango seed oil and marula oil to support the lipid barrier. Auteur Definitive Neck and Decollete Cream uses liquid oxygen and hydroxypinacolone retinoate, and Macrene Actives High Performance Neck and Décolletage Treatment has 50 active ingredients. MBR Cell-Power Neck & Decolleté Cream comes from a clinical-grade German line and is rich in plant butters.

NIOD comes from DECIEM, the company Brandon Truaxe founded in 2013, and its name stands for Non-Invasive Options in Dermal Science. Its Neck Elasticity Catalyst uses baobab fruit extract and caffeine. iS Clinical NeckPerfect Complex gently exfoliates, and Chanel Sublimage La Creme Corps Et Decollete is built on Vanilla planifolia, the Madagascar flower at the heart of the Sublimage line.

Smooth each one upward, from the collarbone to the jaw.

Big numbers collage titled NECK CREAM, six products numbered one to six with each product set beside its number: Dr. Barbara Sturm, StriVectin, CHANEL, NIOD, U Beauty and fresh
Neck Cream

Neck and décolleté creams

Neck serums and masks for extra lift

U Beauty is proof that one product can carry a brand. When it made its debut in 2019 with a single product, co-founders Tina Chen Craig and Katie Borghese barely considered it a brand launch, and then the Resurfacing Compound sold out within a day of its release. The SCULPT Neck + Décolleté Concentrate works on the jawline, neck and chest with a rapid tensor effect.

Serums are the lighter way in. Nécessaire The Neck Serum has five peptides at levels clinically shown to support the skin's natural collagen, and it was made with tech-neck in mind. Alpyn Beauty Super Sculpt Serum is a face and neck serum with a tri-peptide firming complex, prickly pear and lactic acid. StriVectin Peptight Tightening Neck Serum Roller has a roller tip for horizontal lines and jawline definition, and Dr. Barbara Sturm Night Serum soothes with cotton thistle and purslane overnight.

Masks are for the night before an event. 111SKIN Black Diamond Lifting & Firming Neck Mask was created by a Harley Street plastic surgeon, a single-use hydrogel with a peptide complex. StriVectin Sculpting Neck & Jawline Mask works in as little as 20 minutes, and the SCULPT-IT Lifting Jawline & Neck Mask uses plant-based collagen for an immediate tightening effect.

How to use a mask: apply it to clean, dry skin, lie back with your chin level, and massage in whatever is left afterward.

What I would skip: a lactic acid serum on the same night as a retinoid neck cream. The neck is thinner than the face, so give each one its own evening.

Neck serums, masks and rollers

Devices and creams for face and neck

fresh is the brand in this row with the best origin story. Lev Glazman and Alina Roytberg, both from Russia, launched it in 1991 as an apothecary store selling hand-wrapped bars of soap. Roytberg has said the Black Tea collection came from their own aging concerns, and that Glazman drinks black tea for its antioxidants and freezes the extra in ice cube trays. Black Tea Corset Cream Firming Moisturizer is a face and neck cream for a tighter, more lifted look.

The devices are for people who want to add a tool. HigherDOSE Red Light Neck Enhancer uses red and near-infrared light in soft medical-grade silicone, with two preset modes of 10 and 20 minutes. Omnilux Contour Neck & Décolleté is an FDA-cleared red and near-infrared light device for wrinkles on the chest, and NuFACE TRINITY+ is an FDA-cleared microcurrent device that works on the face and neck.

The other creams cover both zones. Clarins Extra-Firming Neck & Décolleté Cream uses collagen polypeptide, L'Occitane Firming Immortelle Divine Smoothing Neck Cream is built on immortelle essential oil, and Kiehl's Super Multi-Corrective Firming Cream for Face & Neck was tested with GLP-1 users. Biologique Recherche Crème PTO Métamorphique is made for skin that has lost tone and structure.

A habit that helps: keep the neck cream next to your face cream so you never skip the extra few inches.

What I would skip: buying a device before you have a routine. Use a cream twice a day for a couple of months first, then add light or microcurrent if you want more.

Neck devices and more neck creams

Taking the routine down to the collarbone

The simplest neck routine is the one you already do for your face, carried a few inches lower. Cleanse down to the collarbone, apply your serum or cream in upward strokes, and finish every morning with sunscreen on the neck and chest, since that skin gets sun too. At night, give retinoids and acids their own evenings so thinner skin does not get irritated. Hold your phone closer to eye level when you can, and be patient, because firming creams take weeks of steady use before you notice a difference.