Which Miracle Working Retinoid is the Best for Your Skin?

Retinoids are impressive ingredients when it comes to preventing and reversing signs of photoaging like fine lines, wrinkles, and sun damage. It can even work magic with acne prone skin! They’re workhouse, miracle-working ingredients that seriously change and improve skin.

The challenge for many of us is finding a retinoid that works for our skin type. Our goal should be to find a product that provides results with minimal side effects like sensitivity and irritation.

We’ll start with going over the different types of Retinoids and how they convert to Retinoic Acid, which is what we want.

Before your skin can use your favorite Retinol it first needs to convert it to Retinoic Acid, allowing you to reap all the youthful benefits.

Retinaldehyde (also known as Retinal) is gaining popularity due to its characteristic of being the least irritating yet potent Retinoid. Unlike its predecessor Retinol, Retinaldehyde converts once, directly into Retinoic Acid. Because our skin skips a conversion step, we receive more benefit, and it’s a great option for sensitive skin types.

Tretinoin is prescription strength Vitamin A, like Retin-A and Renova. It’s already in the form of Retinoic Acid when applied, no conversion needed! It’s the quickest way to gain results, the downside being potential irritation, redness, and peeling. When most of us think of the negative side effects we’ve heard our friends talk about, or experienced ourselves, prescription strength Retinoids were likely the culprit.

The less conversion needed the more collagen production, wrinkle reduction, hyperpigmentation blasting, acne begone benefits you’ll receive. The fewer steps your Retinoid needs to convert to Retinoic Acid, the better your results will be.

If your skin can tolerate prescription-strength Retinoids, by all means, GO FOR IT!

For the rest of us who don’t want our faces falling off during the process, Retinol and Retinaldehyde are our best options.

Building up a tolerance to Retinol is something I attempted, but every product I tried I could only tolerate a couple times a week. Even when I used hyaluronic acid underneath as a buffer, I couldn’t get more than a few days of application. Any more than that and I experienced peeling or dry, itchy skin. Or even worse, the times I gave myself a chemical burn because I forgot to apply the Retinol on dry skin…. whoopsie. Ha!

With Preservation Serum, I can use Retinaldehyde 4 to 5 days in a row before I begin to feel dry. Even with the dryness, I haven’t experienced any sensitivity! I know it’s my own, but it’s a great serum for us with sensitive skin.

What’s your favorite Retinoid product to use?? If you’ve tried different variations, what works best for your skin?? Drop the details in the comments! xx

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