How to Start on Retinoids | Lab Muffin Beauty Science

I'm Michelle from Lab Muffin, Beauty, Science, Chemistry, PhD, Skincare Nerd and Tretinoin Fanatic. Today I'm going to talk about how to

start

tretinoin, adapalene, and other powerful

retinoids

. Tretinoin is one of the most

science

-based skin care ingredients, but it's notoriously difficult to use. For

start

ers, there's a lot of peeling and irritation involved, and my capillaries may have broken since I first tried retinol. . There's even a technical name for this adaptation period, retinization, so to help you get started and avoid all the mistakes I made. Here are some tips on how to add it to your routine with minimal side effects so you can reap the benefits without scaring your skin.

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retinoids

are a derivative of the vitamin, for example, tretinoin, retinol, different, which is adapalene and Tazarotene, they are very popular ingredients in skin care and it is also found in accutane, which It is isotretinoin, an oral medication that has anti-aging, anti-acne and anti-pigment effects, and there are many scientific studies to support them. The main drawback of these Holy Grail skin care ingredients is irritation, which means dry peeling, flaking, stinging, and redness of the skin.

This usually occurs in the first few weeks until the skin finally gets used to it, some people don't feel this irritation at all and for others it takes up to six weeks to stop taking retinoids. Tretinoin is one of the most irritating, but the benefits are also best supported by evidence that Tazarotene is more irritating, but adapalene, retinol, and retinaldehyde are less irritating. I was especially afraid to start taking retinol because when I tried 1% retinol I went a little overboard. I have quite resistant skin and nothing really hurts and it recovers very quickly, not so much with retinol  I used too much too quickly my skin is actually quite sensitive and this irritation is a bit delayed, it doesn't happen the next day, it happens the next day next, so it's a little harder to adjust the amount I use based on my skin's reaction   and you need to have some self control which I don't really have.

I also had a cold at the time so I blew my nose a lot and I think the combined irritation caused broken capillaries   as the retinoids increased the skin irritation. They can also cause purging, which is when a product makes your skin worse before it gets better because it basically makes your skin expel all the baby pimples that were there much faster. I have a video on how to tell if your skin is purging or breaking out. And whether to stop the product or wait until it passes, purging is worse when the skin is irritated, so it is best to add tretinoin slowly so the skin can adjust.

The two main ways to limit bleeding into the skin is to introduce the product. slowly and take care of your skin, that is the goal of my advice. Retinoid products tend to come in many different percentages and it is recommended to start with a formula that is as gentle as possible, so, for example, you can look for lower concentrations and time-release cream formulas are also gentler than retinoids. Gels and also tend to be more effective at delivering the medication to the skin. Also, there are a few different strategies for adding retinoids and basically you want to put them as low as possible.

Without losing patience, some strategies use a lower concentration to increase it, so you can use the lower concentration in the formula or you can try diluting it with oil or cream. You can also try modifying it in a daily application, which is self-explanatory. just use it every two or three days at first. There is also a short contact therapy that involves applying the product as a mask and rinsing it off. There are some studies where short contact gave good results in a daily acne study. 0.05 percent tretinoin. The cream applied for half an hour gave comparable results to leaving it on and far fewer people (about 20%) had irritation even without a moisturizer.

Other considerations include using gentle skin care, so using gentle cleansers and moisturizers and avoiding things like acidic scrubs while the skin is setting. accustomed to retinoid, you should also try not to apply retinoid while your skin is wet because it is easier for the ingredients to penetrate wet skin, so after cleansing, wait about half an hour before applying it. It also helps if you apply the product evenly. You should not apply a lot and therefore you should spread it over your skin so as not to end up with hot spots. One technique is to apply it around your face and rub it in.

You can also dilute it with a cream or moisturizer and then put it on too. I'm using my routine as an example that you can follow or adapt to your own needs. The product I started with made no sense, neither tretinoin 5% nor retinoic acid, the brand name is retin-a, but I used a generic version which in Australia costs $30 for 25ml which is much cheaper than most retinoid without a prescription and is much better regulated, so it has a much better chance of working as intended during the first week I did the short contact therapy. half an hour at night three days apart I used two half pea sized amounts each time and washed with a gentle cleanser.

I used a very gentle skincare like a hydrating toner moisturizer. I tried Stratia Liquid Gold and dr. jart cicapair cream and found that cicapair was most effective during my first week. I had no irritation or peeling and just a little bit of dryness but I also didn't get any results although I didn't get any new pimples so the next week I intensified it so the second week I left it on my skin but I applied an oil underneath, put a very thick layer of oil, something like Stratia Fortify or Huxley Secret of Sahara Oil Light and Oil and then applied about a quarter of it.

The amount of peas on my face, although everything helped the cream spread very evenly and I used to use moisturizer afterwards, so the same as the first week, on the days I didn't use tretinoin, I used a moisturizing toner or a very weak AHA product, this is when the peeling really started, there was a delay of about a day and a half so it would start peeling halfway through the day and it would go away after about a day, there was also a bit of dryness and a slight stinging. A makeup tip if your skin is peeling is to simply use concealer instead of foundation because it makes the flakes look a little less obvious.

Right now I was supposed to get some big pimples this time of month, but I didn't get any. which was good, but it could also have been a fluke. I also noticed that some post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation was fading a little faster than normal because that meant pretty good for the next two weeks. I applied the tretinoin to bare skin every three days. A quarter pea sized amount and I applied it on dry skin and I tried to keep it away from areas that get really irritated and flaky, so around my nose and around my chin I applied moisturizer afterwards and I used a weak alpha hydroxy acid product.

The night before during these two weeks I started with some irritation, but in the end I had virtually no irritation or peeling by the end of the fourth week. I could use the tretinoin every other day. I have talked about my final routine in detail on my blog. which I've also linked in the description, but this is the gist. I have a three-day schedule that rotates the first night. Using one-quarter to one-half of a pea-sized amount of tretinoin. The other days I alternate between alpha hydroxy acid and vitamin C and use niacinamide every night. I found this to be the best combination for me in terms of results.

I found that tretinoin really helps with the texture of my skin, so how smooth it is, how big my pores are, it also helps with how my skin looks, it's a lot clearer and brighter, and this is probably due to the fact that tretinoin makes the stratum corneum more compact. This is the layer of dead skin cells on top of the skin. However, I have found that I still need alpha hydroxy acid to keep clogged pores under control and I still need vitamin C to fade hyperpigmentation much faster. I found that with this routine I don't have much irritation or peeling while still getting all the benefits of the ingredients I made.

I made a lot of mistakes when I started, so I'm listing them here so you don't make them too. My first mistake was using too much too often. This is a very easy mistake to make, especially if your skin is generally quite resistant. it's like it's a kryptonite mistake, number two is using retinoids and then using other irritating things like alpha hydroxy acids. Then I accidentally used 10% alpha-hydroxy acid for the second week and the next day my face was tighter and itchier when I was applying it. Basic things like sunscreen and foundation, five percent was fine for me at first, 10 percent was fine for me later on, but in the beginning just don't do it.

I also made the mistake of using a moisturizing toner before applying the retinol in the beginning. and later, less and less, this made my skin more permeable and more prone to itching, so I hope you found this video useful if you like it and can subscribe to my channel for more videos like this. You can also follow me on instagram at lab

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