(Updated Nov 2, 2024) I’ve tested hundreds of serums over the last ten years and there is nothing quite like Herbal Face Food’s serums. In today’s article, I’m sharing my detailed and honest Herbal Face Food review (plus unedited before & after photos). Are their serums worth it?

I tested HFF Serum 1, The Cure X, The Face Cream and The Eye Cream. This small brand makes 100% plant serums using 50 of the world’s most powerful botanicals and the top 20 rarest, most expensive plant concentrates. And their price tag isn’t for the faint of heart.

The serums are multi-correctional and target ten signs of aging, most notably sun damage, dullness, scarring and texture in my personal experience.  These are 100% organic and made entirely from plants without filler ingredients. They’re super powerful and have increasing levels of concentration to suit your skincare needs. LeAnn Rimes loves it for her melasma! I love that they don’t care about fancy marketing, just creating never-before-seen products that actually work. If they’re a cult favorite with South Korea’s celebs then it must be something special, because they’ve seen it all. Use OBL for 20% off.

A little about their backstory: Herbal Face Food is a culmination of the founder Michael Zenn’s mission to create the most powerful serum ever that would solve years of tanning bed damage deemed irreversible by professionals. He was tired of gimmicky and watered down products that would take forever to work. If you’re tired of products not doing what they claim to do or just aren’t strong enough to solve your skin issues, Herbal Face Food just might be the face serum you need.

My Herbal Face Food Before and After Photos

These are my before and after photos below at the three month mark and six month mark. I was noticing a lot more sun damage popping up and a bit of textured skin around my cheeks, so I used the their serum all over my face except my forehead and upper lip. Some say to use the Herbal Face Food serum on spots only, but it really depends on YOUR skin and concerns. For some people Serum I, the weakest potency serum might be too strong, and for others the Extreme Cure XX (4 times more powerful than their The Cure X) may not be strong enough.

At the three month mark I notice a definite improvement in skin texture and skin tone when using Herbal Face Food serums. You can also see some of the darker sun damage spots clustered in the centre of my cheek has faded. These photos were taken in the same spot in my home in the same lighting and have not been edited. In this close-up before and after photo comparison, my skin tone looks to be more even and the texture has smoothed out subtly.

HFF serums are so strong that if you’re 26 or under, I seriously doubt you would even need a product this strong unless you suffer from acne, cystic acne or melasma. Though Serum I is suitable for sensitive skin I would advise to proceed with caution if you are sensitive or have sensitized skin. While Herbal Face Food recommends starting with Serum I and working your way up to Serum II, Serum III and The Cure, my skin was fine with incorporating The Cure right away. If your skin isn’t sensitive, I’d suggest going ahead and using the stronger serums.

6 Month Before and After Photos

This is my before and after with HFF The Cure at the six month mark. Again, I have not adjusted brightness, contrast, or added a filter of any sort and I’m taking these photos in the same spot in my home at roughly the same time of day to try to get the same lighting.

I tested The Serum I

I personally found The Serum I very powerful on its own but Herbal Face Food’s The Cure is on an entirely different level. The orange colour of Serum 1 is lighter and less intense than the super bright orange huge of The Cure. The scent is strongly medicinal and herbal. I notice an immediate tightening and firming sensation with my skin. With all Herbal Face Food serums I can feel them “getting to work” immediately with a warming sensation from the active plants.

Many of the plants in the Herbal Face Food serums are great at healing and reducing scars, so I’ve also been applying it to a recent raised scar of mine and the hardened scar seems to be softening and diminishing. Because the Herbal Face Food serums feel astringent, I feel like oily and acne prone skin types will especially enjoy this serum. If your skin is dry, I recommend also using a hydrating or hyaluronic acid serum on top of the Herbal Face Food serum.

I tested The Cure X

I was a bit scared about trying The Cure because it’s so much more concentrated than any of their other serums but it is so effective with fading acne scars, brightening my skin and reducing sun damage. For me the spicy burning sensation is almost unbearable for me though and lasts at least five minutes. Some people mention it only lasting 60 seconds so it really depends on each person. I use this after summer vacations when my sun damage is at its worst and I see a noticeable difference within a week. Believe it or not, there’s the Extreme Cure XX that’s 4 times more concentrated than The Cure X.

Herbal Face Food The Cure is the line’s most potent serum for extreme multi-correction. I find this serum much stronger than many budget and mid-range Vitamin C serums I’ve tried. It works thanks to the super potent raw plants (50 of the world’s most powerful botanicals and the top 20 rarest, most expensive plant concentrates) stimulating your skin cells and stopping oxidation from occurring.

The intense spicy “burning” sensation is a dermal warming experience (Thermo-phytochemical reaction) that allows plant nutrients into the skin for anti-aging, cellular generation, elasticity, resiliency and to restore collagen and elastin to the dermis. You can see the difference in color intensity between Herbal Face Food Serum I and The Cure.

I found The Cure is effective at brightening, tightening and toning my skin. It’s like a clinical treatment made entirely of plants that you can get prescription free.

My tips on how to use their serums

It’s recommended to use the serums twice a day, morning and night. You can still use a Vitamin C serum and retinol serum with HFF but I would recommend gently incorporating them in one by one and seeing how your skin reacts. I use one full dropper all over my face, including my eyelids, for each use.

Expert Tip: Give the bottle a good shake before applying. I also highly recommend properly exfoliating before using these, or better yet, getting a professional facial done to make sure you’re not applying the Herbal Face Food serums to dead skin. You want to maximize the chances of these ingredients reaching deep into the skin to work at the cellular level, especially for their price. A professional facial will ensure that you’ve reset your skin so your products can get to work.

If you have specific areas of concern, apply to the serum to those areas only. You can not only maximize benefits but also make the bottle last longer that way and save you money. If you’re looking for overall skin improvement, there is no issue with applying it to the entire face unless you have sensitive skin, but always patch test first.

The reason they call themselves the strongest anti-aging serums on the market is because the antioxidant level of products can be measured and their serums have the highest “score”. There is a scientific method for measuring the antioxidant / anti-aging power of a given ingredient or plant-chemical combination— and it’s called an Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) rating. Based on this, Herbal Face Food serums supposedly have 100,000 times the antioxidant power of Vitamin C.

They currently have five serums that gradually increase in strength. You can start off with the weakest serum and graduate to the next level so to speak.

• The Serum I
• The Serum II
• The Serum III
• The Cure
• The Cure XX 

The numbers indicate concentration levels with The Serum I being suitable for skincare beginners and The Extreme Cure having the highest concentration of active ingredients out of all the serums. As you go up from The Serum I to The Serum II then Serum III you’ll find the concentrations gradually increase. There’s absolutely no fillers, synthetics, and not even plant-based ingredients — just organic plants.

Price

These serums are pricey and would be an investment in your skin. Herbal Face Food Serum I retails for $60 for 10ml, $130 for 30ml and $170 for 50ml. Herbal Face Food The Cure retails for $95 for 10ml, $200 for 30ml and $285 for 50ml. (OBL will take off a chunk at checkout).

Domestic shipping is free and International buyers can enjoy free shipping on $199+ orders. The fact that so many people put their hard-earned money into these blue bottles I think attests to the fact that more often than not, the serums work.

I tried The Cream

I find The Cream to be a super light whipped and mousse-like cream that contains a whopping 102 of the world’s most powerful Anti-Aging botanicals. I also find this to be a tad greasy and don’t think oily skin types would enjoy this as much as dry skin. I only use The Cream at night because it has an intense orange hue. It doesn’t have the same hot sauce burning sensation but there is a dull burn for the first few minutes. Much more subdued and tolerable though. This is a cream that eventually softens to an oily layer – there are no emulsifiers and binders in this formula.

I tried The Eye Cream

I’ve been testing Herbal Face Food’s Eye Cream and this has to be the most balls-to-the-wall, intense eye cream I’ve ever tried. It has 200 botanicals packed into this small jar, which is just insane. It has a similar consistency and texture to The Face Cream and feels like a whipped mousse-y cream that’s a bit greasy. I am on the dry side and closer to 40 so I’m overjoyed to have the opportunity to use something as potent as this. It sinks in beautifully and seems to tighten the skin area, plus I wake up to more refreshed, brighter undereyes.

According to the company, The Eye Cream is the result of 12 years of plant science research and has a 40 Million ORAC Anti-aging scale rating. The eye cream has  a similar texture to the Face Cream, but might be just a little bit lighter. I’ll keep you updated with my final thoughts soon. 

This isn’t an eye cream that’s mostly water, aloe and glycerin with a handful of actives. Actives is literally all this cream is. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen or heard of some of these actives before. (Tualong Honey, Ai Ye, Fresh Royal Sun Blazei, Fresh Amado, Fresh Oyster Mushroom..come again?)

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Is HFF Pregnancy Safe?

I asked Herbal Face Food if the serums are safe during pregnancy and here is what they replied with:

“We have many pregnant and nursing parents that use the products. We have heard from several pregnant and nursing parents that they have been given the approval from their healthcare provider to use our products, but we recommend that you reach out to yours before incorporating anything new to your routine when pregnant or nursing. We want you to be sure that your healthcare provider is comfortable with you using our 100% plant products as some providers have different preferences. So while one provider may be okay with you using it, another may want to be more cautious of any new products that you begin using. Nothing is more important than a little one, so we want our customers to be fully confident in what they choose to put in and on their bodies.”