How to choose effective retinal productsUpdated a year ago
There’s a lot to love about retinal, but there’s also one very major drawback: It’s extremely unstable (as is its weaker younger brother, retinol). Most brands skip it altogether in favor of ultra-weak but easy-to-formulate vitamin A derivatives.
There are a few hoops that brands have to jump through in order to make sure that their retinal products actually work. So if you’re shopping, here are the things to look for:
- UV-proof, oxygen-free packaging. Retinal or retinol packaged in jars or dropper bottles is a total waste of your time. Even the typical airless pump isn’t as airless as people think, which is why we developed our own ingredient fortress with a new technology that’s much more effective at keeping our products fresh.
- Listed 0.1% concentration. Retinal is most effective at 0.1%, which is the concentration that allows it to smooth and brighten the skin.
- Bright friggin’ yellow. Vitamin A is naturally very vibrant. To make sure your product is fresh and uses a high enough concentration of retinal, you want it to be vividly colored.
Giving retinal our A-game
When developing Protocol Skincare, how could we refuse the cosmetic world’s most potent skin-transforming molecule? We wanted to create a product line that would give our friends maximum effects with the least amount of effort… For the end users, that is.
There was plenty of effort on our end. The greatest challenge was developing a truly oxygen-free process from start to finish. Even the tiniest exposure to air during production or packaging would have rendered our finished serum useless.
By working with a team of aerospace engineers, we developed our little orange ingredient fortress, that keeps it fresh and potent from start to finish. The result? The Enzyme-Active Retinol Serum, a bright yellow-orange, 0.1% retinal serum that smooths the skin within weeks.
It’s fair to say that we gave retinal our A-game. So how about you give your skin the same treatment?