As a result of its effects on your skin's cellular turnover speed, tretinoin reduces the appearance of wrinkles, evens out your skin's pigmentation and also treats skin issues such as acne. The end result is smoother, younger looking skin that's much less affected by fine lines, wrinkles or other common signs of aging.
In many ways, Retin-A can be thought of as reversing the outwards signs of aging on the skin. The earliest effect of Retin-A is that the outer layer of keratinocytes start shedding off, leaving the skin fresher, smoother and more evenly pigmented.
Retinoids reduce fine lines and wrinkles by increasing the production of collagen. They also stimulate the production of new blood vessels in the skin, which improves skin color. Additional benefits include fading age spots and softening rough patches of skin.
“This will make your skin look older and accentuate wrinkles” — which is probably not what you're going for when you start using the stuff. And there's no question that retinol makes your skin more sensitive to the sun.
Tretinoin works by speeding up your body's production of new skin cells, letting you replace old skin with new skin faster. As well as anti-aging, it's also widely used as a topical acne treatment. Like most medications, tretinoin isn't instant.
Avoid Your Eyes, Nostrils and Other Sensitive Areas
When applying tretinoin under your eyes, spread it away from your eyes. Use a margin of safety so that tretinoin is never too close to your eyelid margin.
Do the results last if you stop using retinol? Yes, but most dermatologists say you'll want to resume using it for optimal results. "Retinols help turn back the clock. If you have to stop them (for example while pregnant), your skin is still better from the time you were using them," explains Dr.
First, the answer is yes, retinol can make wrinkles worse, especially when you first start using it. What is happening is a drying effect, and one can get epidermal sliding from separation from the dermis.
Retin-A achieves a very important goal in anti-aging treatments: it helps boost collagen levels in the skin. Collagen provides skin with firmness and elasticity, but as you age, your cells produce less collagen, allowing wrinkling and sagging to occur.
Skin purging happens when new ingredients, like retinol, promote increased cell turnover, which causes clogging and worsening breakouts. This is particularly the case as oil and debris that is trapped deeper underneath the skin comes to the surface.
According to Freiling, retinol is “one of the best” ingredients for anti-aging benefits. “It doesn't just help with smoothing and preventing fine lines and wrinkles but also stimulates collagen and elastin production, which we lose with age,” she said.
Tretinoin is considered to be the most widely used prescription retinoid treatment for wrinkles. It comes in the form of a gel. During use, you must wear sunscreen daily to protect your skin from sunburn and photoaging.
On the whole, it's best to think of botox as a treatment for wrinkles that are apparent with moving facial muscles (smiling, furrowing your brow, frowning) while tretinoin can help treat the fine lines and sun spots resulting from UV exposure.
Retin-A does double duty in helping to boost collagen. According to research at Michigan, it has the potential to stop photoaging before it starts. “The retinoids prevent the rise of collagenase after UV exposure,” Dr. Voorhees said.
Enlarged facial pores happen when oil, dirt, and dead skin cells build up in pores, making them look larger. Tretinoin minimizes pore appearance by increasing cell turnover and boosting exfoliation, which clears debris in the pores and allows pores to shrink back to their normal size.
But tretinoin, another form of vitamin A, may be the most effective ingredient to firm the skin on your neck and face. Since 1984, multiple studies on animals and people show that tretinoin can firm your skin and increase collagen production to the point where sagging skin becomes less noticeable.
Use a Retinol Serum Nightly – Retinol when applied topically to the skin helps exfoliate and resurface the neck area. Since the skin of the neck can be more sensitive than the face, try starting with a small amount of product. I recommend our Piel MD Age Defying Night Serum to start.
Any retinol-based product will help with tightening, but this Dr Russo superserum has been devised specifically to provide increased firmness around the jawline within weeks.
In general, retinol is one of the more gentle varieties of retinoids, however, “if you're going to experience shedding it will begin on day three to five of daily night time use, and this usually continues for about five to 10 days depending on your skin type and the percentage of retinol you've used,” adds Ejikeme.
Retinol, salicylic acid, glycolic acid—all effective ingredients that can improve the look and feel of your complexion. But they can lead to irritation, and when used too close to your delicate eye area, that irritation can lead to bags.
"Retinol is used in anti-ageing, as it increases cell turnover. It may also enhance the effects of minoxidil (hair loss medication) on hair growth when mixed together." In other words, it could have some benefits for hair growth when combined with other ingredients.
To answer your question, generally Retin A eyelid use is too irritating, at full strength. There are eye creams specifically formulated for this very thin skin that have retinol (a weaker version of Retin A/tretinoin) in them that many will tolerate.
Peeling, redness, and irritation are common onset reactions for some people when they first start to use retinol. Some reactions get so bad that the common term used to describe the list of effects has been dubbed the “retinol uglies”. Note from a skincare expert: Many things in life get worse before they get better.
Retinol can be effective in lightening the skin and reducing the appearance of dark spots. It does so by promoting skin shedding, which improves cell turnover rate and hinders the activity of the enzyme tyrosinase, which encourages the production of melanin.
You may notice tretinoin starting to work within 2 to 3 weeks, but it can take 6 weeks or more to experience the full benefit. If you don't see improvement within 12 weeks, or if you have significant improvement and wonder if you should start using it less frequently, talk to your doctor.