Tretinoin can help dark spots fade, allowing you to have a more even skin tone. It decreases the amount of melanin in your skin cells (Zasada, 2019). When used for discoloration, tretinoin is usually combined with other skin-lightening products, sometimes in the form of a chemical peel (Lawrence, 2021).
If you're using topical tretinoin to reduce wrinkles, discoloration, age spots, and/or rough feeling skin, it can take 3–4 months or up to six months before you see results.
Descriptions. Tretinoin is used to treat acne or other skin diseases as determined by your doctor. It works partly by keeping skin pores clear. One of the tretinoin creams is used to treat fine wrinkles, dark spots, or rough skin on the face caused by the damaging rays of the sun.
Tretinoin Cream 0.1% contains the highest available concentration of tretinoin, the active ingredient most prescribed by dermatologists to treat dark spots, fine lines, wrinkles, and signs of premature aging.
Skin Discoloration
Tretinoin can fade spots on the face, evening out your skin tone and helping to hide the blotchy coloration that can affect many people's facial skin. In some cases, however, tretinoin can also cause small patches of skin to darken, producing noticeable skin discoloration.
Tretinoin Does Not “Bleach” Your Skin
Contrary to popular belief, tretinoin is not a “bleaching agent” or medicine designed specifically to lighten your skin tone. While tretinoin can even out patches of hyperpigmentation and cause a mild change in your skin tone, it doesn't affect melanin synthesis.
Topical application of tretinoin significantly lightens postinflammatory hyperpigmentation; to a clinically minimal but statistically significant degree, it also lightens normal skin in black persons.
Studies show that topical tretinoin can lighten age spots, making them less visible. In one study, researchers studied 58 different people with age spots. They found that at the end of the 10-month study, 20 out of the 24 people treated with tretinoin (83 percent) had measurable lightening of their age spots.
Retin-A is one of the most common retinol prescriptions ordered by dermatologists, but that doesn't mean it's the best product for Black skin. Because Retin-A is prescription-strength retinol, it has a high concentration that can overwhelm darker complexion. This is a case of too much of a good thing is bad.
Tretinoin can also be used to decrease the appearance of acne scarring. Since tretinoin speeds up cell turnover on your skin, it can encourage new cell growth at the site of your scarring. Tretinoin in several forms has been tested successfully as an effective way to treat acne scars.
Tretinoin (Retin-A) is considered the first-line treatment for AN. When used regularly, it can help thin and lighten the skin in affected areas.
Generally, it is fine to use tretinoin every night, but you may not want to because of the initial side effects, especially when you first start. You should only use tretinoin as prescribed to avoid significant skin irritation, redness, and other side effects.
The American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) recommends the following treatments for dark spots in skin of color: 2% hydroquinone. azelaic acid. glycolic acid.
After 4-6 weeks, your skin will get used to tretinoin and will begin to be noticeably smoother and more even. A lot of the initial irritation will settle down and true “retinization” of your skin is in full force.
Think of Tretinoin as floss for your face. It works to open pores, helps turnover the skin, evens the pigment tone and texture. As a pharmaceutical form of retinoic acid available only by prescription, Tretinoin is a vitamin A based retinoid used to treat acne other skin diseases partly by keeping skin pores clear.
After three months, 94 percent of the patients experienced a significant decrease in the depth of their acne scars. The researchers concluded that tretinoin is an “effective, noninvasive treatment of atrophic acne scars without causing disturbing side-effects.”
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.
It can take one to two minutes for the tretinoin cream or gel to begin to absorb into your skin, at which point it should no longer be visible. Set a timer for 20 minutes and avoid touching your skin or applying any other skincare products until the tretinoin has been fully absorbed.
Derived from vitamin A, retinoids — such as tretinoin (Retin-A, Renova, Avita) — that you apply to your skin may improve the appearance of stretch marks less than a few months old. Tretinoin, when it works, helps to rebuild a protein in the skin called collagen, making the stretch marks look more like your normal skin.
Retinol also stimulates collagen production, which is another way it diminishes dark spots. Not only will dark spots be reduced, but wrinkles and sagging skin will also begin to diminish, and the effects of retinol products will continue to work just as effectively over time.
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.
Results: Both 0.1% and 0.025% tretinoin produced statistically significant overall improvement in photoaging of the face compared with vehicle; there were no clinically or statistically significant differences in efficacy between the two concentrations of tretinoin.
“If the retinol you're using is too strong for your skin causing inflammation, darker skin tones may have a higher risk of discoloration, or hyperpigmentation, from the use of it," she adds. Dr. Icecreamwala recommends starting with a retinol that is 0.3 or 0.5 percent.
While Green says that retin-a (tretinoin) or retinoids are best, retinol is the next best bet without a prescription. “Retinol is a weaker over-the-counter formula of retinoids and can provide similar benefits in reducing the appearance of dark spots, although it will typically take much longer,” Green explains.