Retinal or retinol - which is better?Updated a year ago
The incredible thing about retinal is that it delivers the same dramatic benefits as retinoic acid but without the same risk of irritation. Retinol, while largely non-irritating, just doesn’t have the same profound impact on the skin. In other words, in a retinal vs retinol showdown, retinaldehyde is clearly the superior cosmetic retinoid.
The reason for this is pretty simple - when you apply retinol to your skin, it actually has to turn into retinaldehyde first! Then it converts into retinoic acid, which is when it can finally impact the skin.
The step where retinol converts into retinal is much less efficient than the step where retinal converts into retinoic acid. In practice, this means that retinol is about 20 times weaker than retinaldehyde.
At the same time, retinaldehyde doesn’t seem to be more irritating than retinol. While irritation and purging are extremely common with full-strength retinoic acid, the vast majority of our clients have reported zero irritation from using our retinal serum.