Above: The Cellumination range from left to right - Mask-in Lotion, essence EX, Deep Surge EX and Day Surge UV

Whitening skincare, or skincare that promotes more evenly toned skin continue to be a major beauty trend for women's skincare in 2013.

To address women's concern for having flawless, translucent skin with that barely made-up look, luxury beauty label SK-II will be launching the Cellumination Day Surge UV, a dual-action whitening emulsion with UV protection (SPF30/PA+++) in March.

The new addition is a daytime moisturiser which blocks out stressors such potentially harmful UV rays from the environment and enhances skin's lucency - a property that the brand terms ‘Translucent Aura Bright Skin’.

With a blend of ingredients that form its new active complex, Aura Bright Cocktail ‘D’, Cellumination Day Surge UV 'protects' against and 'treats' day-time skin damage by restoring skin's plumpness, reducing oxidation, lightening pigmentation and allowing your night-time beauty regime to work more efficiently.

But before you get lost in beauty-speak, what do these translate into, in terms of real results?

A simple test during the media launch showed that the emulsion worked effectively to block out UV light.

Members of the media were given a UV stamp on their hands, and asked to apply the emulsion to half of the stamp. By training a UV light on the stamped skin, the part of the stamp that was moisturised with Cellumination Day Surge UV did not become illuminated, whilst the other portion did. I was rather impressed by this immediate result, but do remember that this was an effect of a UV blocker.

For an understanding of the longer term result, invited journalists were also asked to look at 'before' and 'after' pictures of six women and to vote for the photos in which they thought the women were wearing not foundation. My one outstanding thought of the pictures of the women was that they looked remarkably similar, except that each of the subjects in one version looked slightly more radiant than her other photo.

The pictures which captured the women at their radiant-looking best, as it turned out, were the 'after' photos of the women, having tested Cellumination Day Surge UV for about 14 days

As a footnote, I was assured that the women's faces in the pictures were not photo-shopped.