Is Drunk Elephant C-Firma Fresh Day Serum worth it?

The gurus are split. 7 of the 11 gurus give it their stamp of approval while 3 would skip it, which lands it in the middle at a Guru Score of 65%.

What is Drunk Elephant C-Firma Fresh Day Serum's Guru Score?

Drunk Elephant C-Firma Fresh Day Serum holds a Guru Score of 65%. That is our read on how warmly the experts talk about it, based on the verdicts of 11 independent expert reviewers we have collected.

Who is Drunk Elephant C-Firma Fresh Day Serum best for?

Drunk Elephant C-Firma Fresh Day Serum is generally suited to mature skin.

Drunk Elephant

C-Firma Fresh Day Serum.

Serums

About this product

A vitamin C serum with 15% L-ascorbic acid, vitamin E, and ferulic acid, designed to brighten and protect skin. The Fresh version requires mixing a powder with liquid serum before use.

Best for

Mature skin

Type

SerumsDrops & dropper

Key actives

Vitamin C Hyaluronic acidVitamin E

Formula notes

Fragrance-freeNo drying alcohol

Full ingredients

Water/Aqua/Eau, Dimethyl Isosorbide, Ascorbic Acid, Laureth-23, Glycerin, Tocopherol, Lactobacillus/Pumpkin Ferment Extract, Sclerocarya Birrea Seed Oil, Dipotassium Glycyrrhizate, Glycyrrhiza Glabra (Licorice) Root Extract, Vitis Vinifera (Grape) Juice Extract, Ferulic Acid, Phyllanthus Emblica Fruit Extract, Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract, Lactobacillus/Punica Granatum Fruit Ferment Extract, Propanediol, Gluconolactone, Sodium Hyaluronate Crosspolymer, Sodium Hyaluronate, Oryza Sativa (Rice) Bran Extract, Glutamylamidoethyl Imidazole, Tetrahydrobisdemethoxydiferuloylmethane, Tetrahydrodemethoxydiferuloylmethane, Tetrahydrodiferuloylmethane, Pentylene Glycol, Caprylhydroxamic Acid, Leuconostoc/Radish Root Ferment Filtrate, Sorbic Acid, Phenoxyethanol, Sodium Benzoate, Caprylyl Glycol, Chondrus Crispus (Carrageenan) Extract, Ethylhexylglycerin

Guru Score

65%

Mixed

11 experts · Strong agreement

11Gurus

7Approved

1Mixed

3Skip

What the gurus are saying

The mix-it-yourself formula earns consistent praise for keeping vitamin C stable from the moment you combine it, avoiding the oxidation risk of pre-mixed serums sitting on shelves. However, some find the mixing step tedious, and the product's effectiveness splits sharply by skin tone: dermatologists note that L-ascorbic acid, while excellent for lighter skin, may not be the best choice for deeper skin tones. A few people have found it irritating, though most who tolerate it report real brightening and hydration, particularly those with dry or sensitive skin.

Synthesized from 11 expert reviews · most recent take March 2026

Where to buy

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How it works Independent by design. Every take comes from a creator we have no relationship with. We do not ask anyone to review, and affiliate links never move a score.

Every take, in full

What the gurus are saying.

Every take we've logged from this product's reviews across YouTube. Click any row to watch the moment they said it.

All takes Approved takes Critical takes Mixed takes Hide sponsored

Dr. Vanita Rattan

1.22M subs

~Mixed

"It's got licorice root extract, a beautiful tyrosinase inhibitor. It's got ferment, which is a conditioner for our skin. It's in an airless pump. The only downside is that it's 15% L-ascorbic acid. Out of all of the vitamin C acids, the L-ascorbic acid is my favorite one by far. And if they'd literally picked any other form of vitamin C, I would love this product, but they've gone for the gold standard for Caucasian skin, L-ascorbic acid. It's just not the best for skin of color. So, unfortunately, it's a no for me if you have skin of color, but if you have Caucasian skin, this is the best by far."

The Budget Dermatologist

719k subs

~Approved

"Drunk Elephant C-Firma Fresh Day Serum, their vitamin C serum is a really, really good, even suitable level good swap for skin suiticles. It's expensive. It's $80, but that's going to still save you over $100 if you were thinking about getting skin suiticles. You can get this one instead. Very similar: vitamin E, ferulic acid, low pH, 15% L-ascorbic acid. I use all of them, but I would say currently I've been doubling down on this option, and also with very sensitive skin, I find this just is soothing to my skin and does not overdo it and still gives me the results I'm looking for."

James Welsh

1.58M subs

~Skip

"Mini versions of Drunk Elephants vitamin C and glycolic acid serums. Not for kids."

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"Their standout products like their C-Firma vitamin C serum really helped fuel this growth and kind of helped cement the brand's status as a staple of the skincare world."

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"Drunk Elephant launched a reformative version of the product called C-Firma Fresh in 2022. And this version requires consumers to mix the product themselves before use, which some believe may have been a way of sidestepping the patent infringement."

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"Mini versions of Drunk Elephants vitamin C and glycolic acid serums. Not for kids."

Dr. Jenny Liu

318k subs

~Approved

"It's got their C-Firma vitamin C serum that is a great antioxidant serum to use every morning. It's got 15% lactic acid along with ferulic acid and pumpkin seed extract for some added radiance."

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"They have their vitamin C antioxidant serum, the C-Firma Fresh Day Serum, and you guys know I am obsessed with vitamin C. It is a must have in my morning skincare routine."

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"It's got their C-Firma vitamin C serum that is a great antioxidant serum to use every morning. It's got 15% lactic acid along with ferulic acid and pumpkin seed extract for some added radiance."

Doctorly

3.57M subs

~Approved

"I like Drunk Elephant a lot. I think they have a lot of good products, but they're just expensive. They use pretty high quality actives, fragrance-free, useful products. Their moisturizers are really good, though they're expensive."

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"This one needs to be actually mixed together so it comes separately and you have to mix the powder into the serum, which I find some people like to be chemists and some people don't like to do it. The interesting thing about this particular formulation is that Drunk Elephant was sued by SkinCeuticals for patent infringement, so the formula was so close to SkinCeuticals' formula that they actually ended up suing them over formula copying, so just important to note there. This is not an inexpensive product, probably still in that 60 to 80 dollar range. What's kind of nice about this is that you're getting exactly what you need and you know that it's stable from the time that you get it, which is actually pretty cool because you don't know how long the other products have been sitting on the shelf with the cap on. The value is that you have these unstable ingredients that can break down and so this may stay stable longer."

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Nipun Kapur

401k subs

~Approved

"This one is amazing because this formula has different types of hyaluronic acid with hyaluronic acid B concentrations and volume levels that improve hydration."

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"This one is amazing because this formula has different types of hyaluronic acid with hyaluronic acid B concentrations and volume levels that improve hydration."

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"Effective vitamin C Sunday Riley skin sules SE all sules minimalist 10% 16% I also like the Dr sha one"

No BS Beauty

89k subs

~Skip

"I've also currently been testing out the Drunk Elephant new vitamin C serum which in my opinion it's not super impressive. I don't know, some of their releases used to be special and they just don't seem like that anymore."

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"I had the Drunk Elephant vitamin C serum which I reviewed finally. There's a little bit left. I just gave it to my friend to finish up because it didn't work well for my skin. It was too acidic, too many different volatile ingredients. My skin really did not like it. It freaked out. It was just too irritating."

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"The Drunk Elephant C-Firma serum, I believe the reason why they changed the formula was probably due to consumer complaints about it being oxidized, but also because I heard Skin Ceuticals was coming after them for using their patented formula."

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"I've been wanting to try for so long however I'm super paranoid about vitamin C serums because they go bad so fast and a lot of times if you don't get on the first packaging manufacturing run a lot of times they end up getting old, oxidized, not great. I will say Drunk Elephant is probably an example of that. If you got their first run of their C-Firma serum it was amazing, then after that it was like they did one run of it and that was it and it turned to just garbage. Now they've repackaged it and stuff and I'm still not a huge fan."

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"I'm still annoyed with Drunk Elephant, what they did with their C-Firma serum, selling it oxidized for years. That leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. I picked up the new bottle, which is similar to Clinique and requires mixing the two parts. I haven't mixed it and tested it yet, but I'm still annoyed with the whole thing. And it's still ridiculously expensive. So I just think there's better options if you're going to spend hundreds of dollars. There's just so many better options out there."

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"The Drunk Elephant La La Retinol Whipped Cream was really nice, however I kind of moved on to another product. This stuff is pretty expensive and I found after a while it's a little too hydrating, but it's still nice and works well for a lot of people. It's just I don't need it anymore. I moved on kind of from Drunk Elephant as a whole because of how expensive they are, but overall it's still a good moisturizer and it still works well for a lot of people."

Tea with MD

107k subs

~Approved

"The Drunk Elephant C-Firma Fresh Day Serum has 15% L-ascorbic acid, vitamin E, and 0.5% ferulic acid, so it's very similar to the Skinceuticals C E Ferulic, and it also contains some extra goodies like pumpkin ferment for exfoliation. What I think is interesting about this one is that you actually mix it fresh before use. It comes with a liquid serum and it has the vitamin C powder, and you put it together and shake it around, and then you have a freshly mixed and freshly made vitamin C serum. I like that because sometimes you buy a product and it just sits on your shelf for a really long time and you might forget about it or you don't know how long that product has already been sitting on the shelf. I like that you can control when you actually make the vitamin C serum, so that once you mix it, you know that you should start using it and that's when the clock starts for when the vitamin C might start to oxidize. I also like that it comes in this type of pump packaging versus a dropper, where you have to remove the dropper and expose the whole bottle to air every single time, so I prefer this packaging."

Dr. Somji Skin

358k subs

~Approved

"One of my favorite ones is the Drunk Elephant C-Firma Fresh Day Serum because it's stabilized in a good formulation. There's good packaging that doesn't damage it, that doesn't allow the environment to damage it, and it stays stable for a longer period of time."

Cassandra Bankson

2.45M subs

~Skip

"Should kids even be using products like Drunk Elephant? They're retinoid creams, they're intense vitamin C's. I've got beef with that brand for many reasons. The problem is the types of skincare they're using and the manner in which it's being used. If we have people, specifically children, putting retinoids and vitamin C on their face, that can actually sting."

Sincerely Miss Ash

195k subs

~Approved

"The last vitamin C that I really love is the Drunk Elephant C-Firma Fresh Day Serum. I've been using their vitamin C on and off for several years and I actually started using this over four years ago and I've always recommended this. I like this formulation a lot it does brighten up your skin but I also feel like this formula really helps to firm the skin as well. The formulation is the same but the packaging has changed since I started this back four years ago so now when you purchase this you get the ascorbic acid powder separately and then they provide you with the serum in a different bottle. When you're ready to use this you're going to mix the two together, you're going to shake this really well and then of course you are ready to use it. I like this because with other vitamin C serums you have no idea how long these products have been sitting on the shelf for or how long they've been sitting in a warehouse for so when you get it you don't know if it's already started to oxidize until you open up the bottle."

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"I'm still in love with it and I wish I didn't stop using it because this really is a great product when your skin is super dry and it feels tight. It is very rich and very moisturizing. I feel like this is more moisturizing than the Drunk Elephant Protini Polypeptide Cream. This one is definitely thicker and it's also great for everyday twice a day. I do like this for nighttime but I will use this in my morning routine and my makeup and sunscreen also sit nicely on top of this. There are six different oils in here so again if you don't like oils in your formulation then you're not going to like this."

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