What Is Retinol And What To Look For?

What to look for in a retinol?

Almost every skin care routine and expert recommends a retinol.  Spoiler alert:  we do too!!  So what do I look for in getting the best product and features on my face.

1.  Strength

The strength of the product is important to create the desired result.  The stronger the product the more effect will be created.  Most of our patients want to work their way up the strength ladder to stronger products to eventually be at the strogner strenght profile.  We recommend for most patients to try and get to at least 1% retinol.  Almost every medical skin care line has a 1% retinol strength with most having .25% an .5%.  In Aesthetic Skin, we have a 1.5% product called Forza which to our knowledge is the strongest retinol available for daily use.  To keep it simple here, stronger product usually means more effects and better results.

2. Fat vs Water Based

Fat based products have the benefit of having less drying effects while water based products will evaporate and lead to redness and irritation.  We recommend several fat based products including skinmedica and Aesthetic Skin.  Both products will penetrate the skin deeper and fat based products typically avoid overly drying the skin, a key element in retinol selection. Fat based products also allow for slower penetration and release of the products avoiding flooding the skin with retinol which can create significant irritation.

3. Time Release Use of Microsponges

Microsponges are what the sound like, small little sponges which release the product in your skin over days rather than hours.  We specially designed Aesthetic Skin Retinol Series to have microsponges so that even if you use the product every other day your skin is still seeing the effects of the retinol days later.

4.  Avoidance of parabens, dyes and sulfites

All of the products on our website and the vast majority of medical grade skin care products will avoid the use of these harmful agents.  Parabans and sulfites can lead to further disruption in the skin milieu.