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If you’re looking for a face serum that will give you healthy, glowing skin, the best ones use ingredients straight from Mother Nature. Natural face serums with plant extracts and seed oils can do wonders for your complexion, providing serious hydration, balancing skin tone, and reducing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
By opting for a natural face serum, you can also avoid the yucky synthetic ingredients, such as parabens, silicones, and pthalates, that some conventional face serums contain. If you’re looking to soothe and hydrate your skin and boost your glow, read on for the best natural and organic face serums.
Benefits of a Natural Face Serum
Face serums are lightweight skincare products that contain a high concentration of power-player ingredients, like hyaluronic acid and vitamin C. You can use them after cleansing and toning your skin and before moisturizing to boost your glow.
Some of the top benefits of incorporating a natural, non-toxic face serum into your skincare routine include:
- Nutrient-rich formulations: Natural serums contain high concentrations of nourishing plant extracts, vitamins, and minerals. They can also treat specific skin concerns, such as dryness or dark spots.
- Deep hydration: Ingredients like hyaluronic acid, aloe vera, and plant-based oils help the skin retain moisture, resulting in a dewy complexion.
- Antioxidants: Ingredients like vitamins C and E, green tea extract, and rosehip oil contain antioxidants that help protect the skin from environmental damage.
- Gentle and non-irritating: Since natural serums are free from harsh synthetic chemicals and fragrances, they’re a great choice for anyone with sensitive skin or allergies.
- Soothing and calming: Along similar lines, your natural face serum may contain botanical extracts like chamomile, calendula, and lavender, which can help reduce redness, inflammation, and irritation.
- Visible results: If you use a face serum consistently, you should see radiant, smooth, and healthy-looking skin.
11 Best Natural Face Serums for Glowing Skin
Here are our top picks for the best natural and non-toxic face serums to apply after cleansing and before your favorite face moisturizer. Many of these serums are verified by the Environmental Working Group, meaning they meet high standards for ingredient safety and transparency.
1. Three Ships Dew Drops Mushroom Hyaluronic Acid + Vitamin C Serum (Best for Daily Use)
Three Ships makes some of my favorite natural face moisturizers and serums. This intensive Dew Drops serum deeply hydrates, plumps, and firms the skin while brightening and evening out skin tone. It’s lightweight, absorbs quickly, and has a fresh citrus fragrance.
Some of the ingredients in this natural face serum are vitamin C from the kakadu plum, natural hyaluronic acid from the tremella mushroom, and potent red algae extract. It’s vegan, cruelty-free, gluten-free, and pregnancy-safe and can be used on a daily basis, morning and night.
The Dew Drops face serum, along with the other skincare products from Three Ships, is free from parabens, phthalates, artificial colors and flavors, and other hidden nasties, so you can feel good about what you’re putting on your skin.
2. Attitude Oceanly Phyto-Calm Face Serum Bar (Best for Eco-Friendly Packaging)
The Oceanly face serum from Attitude comes in a solid bar form, making it easy to apply on clean skin. It absorbs quickly and is great for all skin types. Enriched with naturally-sourced ingredients like soothing phytoglycogen, glycerine, and bladderwrack extract from algae, this serum moisturizes and nourishes the skin.
It’s 100% vegan and cruelty-free and comes in FSC-certified plastic-free and biodegradable paper packaging with cardboard sourced from sustainably managed forests. Attitude also makes a great organic night cream to lock in hydration while you sleep.
3. Auraïha Glass Face Brightening Serum (Best for a Glass-Skin Effect)
Auraïha’s Glass Face Brightening Serum gives you a naturally radiant complexion with potent ingredients like squalane and AHA fruit acids. This formula works with skin of all tones and textures and is cruelty-free. It’s also free from harmful ingredients like parabens, phthalates, sulfates, silicones, and synthetic fragrances.
Auraïha is also committed to sustainability in its packaging. All of its packaging is recycled, reusable, or zero waste and uses non-toxic materials (even the ink it uses on its labels is non-toxic and water-based!).
4. Biossance Squalane + Phyto-Retinol Serum (Best for Sensitive Skin)
Biossance is another favorite for natural skincare products, including this Squalane + Phyto-Retinol serum. Made with bakuchiol and niacinamide, this serum is a plant-derived retinol alternative, so you can get the same skin-loving effects without the potential irritation. Along with bakuchiol and niacinamide, this face serum also contains hyaluronic acid and squalane to moisturize and protect the skin.
You can use this serum daily to plump and moisturize your skin and reveal radiance and brightness. The Squalane + Phyto-Retinol serum, along with all of Biossance’s other skincare products, is vegan, cruelty-free, and made without parabens or synthetic fragrances. Biossance also makes some of our favorite organic eye cream.
5. Suki Purifying Face Serum (Best for Fighting Blemishes)
If you’re looking to reduce blemishes and soothe redness, the Purifying Face Serum from Suki might be your new best friend. This clarifying natural face serum balances sebum and bacteria production to reduce flare-ups and irritation.
It’s formulated with salicylic acid but is safe for sensitive skin and doesn’t cause dryness. It also contains other powerful antibacterial botanical extracts, such as echinacea, goldenseal, and zinc.
This serum is 100% natural, cruelty-free, and made without synthetic ingredients, parabens, or preservatives. You only need to massage one or two drops onto your skin after cleansing. Alternatively, you can use it as a spot treatment to get rid of blemishes.
6. Osea Hyaluronic Sea Serum (Best for Promoting Firmer Skin)
This unscented face serum from Osea is an anti-aging power player. Its naturally derived hyaluronic acid, chlorphyll, citric acid, and other ingredients help increase facial volume and promote firmer skin.
Made in California, this natural face serum helps hydrate the skin and decrease redness. It’s vegan, cruelty-free, and Leaping Bunny certified.
7. Tree to Tub Night Power Serum (Best for Mature Skin and Dark Spots)
Tree to Tub’s Night Power Serum contains retinol, vitamin A, vitamin E, hyaluronic acid, and glycolic acid to improve the tone and texture of skin and minimize pores. It’s a great pick for nourishing mature skin and minimizing dark spots.
You can apply this one at night and lets its soothing, antioxidant-rich ginseng and green tea formulation nourish your skin while you sleep. Along with hydrating your skin, this natural face serum also helps fight breakouts.
8. True Botanicals Clear Repair Serum (Best Splurge)
If you don’t mind splurging on a natural face serum, check out the Clear Repair Serum from True Botanicals. Suitable for all skin types, this sandalwood-scented serum is a concentrated powerhouse.
It visibly improves skin clarity and moisture while helping treat and prevent blemishes and breakouts. The Clear Repair Serum contains hyaluronic acid to strengthen skin, along with plant-derived peptides, antioxidant-rich oils, soothing ceramides, and other natural extracts.
All of the products from True Botanicals carry the MADE SAFE seal, which means they’re made without 5,000+ toxic chemicals that are known to harm human and environmental health. This clean, vegan face serum is cruelty-free and doesn’t contain parabens, sulfates, phthalates, or synthetic fragrances.
9. Vermont Skincare Company Serum 5 (Best for Minimal Ingredients)
As a New Englander, I had to include this great organic face serum from the Vermont Skincare Company on the list. It contains only five ingredients, all of which are organic, vegan, and cold-pressed. They are rosehip seed oil, argan oil, jojoba oil, vitamin E oil, and essential oils, including lavender, geranium, and frankincense.
A little goes a long way with this serum, so you only need to apply three to four drops to your face, neck, and chest to see results. This lightweight daily serum protects the skin from oxidative stress and promotes collagen production and skin cell regeneration. It’s great for sensitive to normal skin types and helps hydrate and replenish thirsty skin.
10. Dermabiotics Regenerating Serum (Best for Balancing the Skin’s Microbiome)
This all-natural topical serum from Dermabiotics supports firm, hydrated, and glowy skin while protecting the skin barrier. It uses plant-based, all-natural ingredients and targeted prebiotics, probiotics, and phytobiotics to balance and nourish the skin microbiome.
Some of these ingredients include lactococcus ferment lysate (a probiotic), laminaria digitata and chlorella vulgaris (algae phytobiotics), and hydrolyzed soy fiber (a prebiotic). This face serum also contains hyaluronic acid and a sea water mineral blend, which is high in skin-soothing magnesium.
This clean face serum is cruelty-free, vegan, and free of preservatives and artificial colors.
11. For the Biome Shield Face Serum (Best for Protecting Skin From Environmental Stressors)
For the Biome’s multi-layer serum contains volcanic CO2 extracted actives to help defend the skin from environmental stressors and blue light. It also contains organic astaxanthin, a nutrient derived from microalgae that helps defend against free radicals.
This botanical-scented, lightweight oil absorbs quickly, leaving behind a translucent, mattified shield for a clearer, smoother, and more radiant complexion.
Embrace Natural Face Serums in Your Skincare Routine
Whether you’re looking to soothe skin irritation, boost hydration, minimize fine lines, or all of the above, incorporating a natural face serum into your skincare regimen can help you achieve your goals.
Natural face serums rely on botanicals and plant-derived ingredients to deliver deep hydration, nourishing nutrients, and antioxidants into your skin. These lightweight formulations feel great on the skin and absorb easily, resulting in visible results with consistent use.
If you’re specifically looking for a vitamin C serum to up your glow, check out all our top picks for natural vitamin C serums here.