What is the best retinol for sensitive skin?Updated a year ago
The best retinol for sensitive skin will be a product that causes minimal to no redness or stinging, while still transforming your skin on the molecular level. That’s exactly what we created with the Protocol Lab Enzyme-Active Retinol Serum.
These are the key factors that make it such a solid retinol for sensitive skin:
Airtight and stable: As skincare formulas degrade, the compounds in them transform and the overall product can become a little more irritating while also losing its beneficial skin impact. There aren’t many retinoids out there that come in truly airless containers, but formulas that do could be more effective with a lower risk of irritation.
At Protocol Lab, our Retinol Serum manufacturing process and packaging are based on space containment technology, to ensure that our retinol is 100% protected from UV and oxygen. This way, we can ensure our serums won’t break down in a way that can irritate the skin.
Bolstered by soothing agents: The best retinol for sensitive skin also needs to include ingredients that maintain the skin barrier and prevent irritation.
First, our serum contains cyclodextrin. This underrated skincare ingredient is bonded to the retinol, boosting its stability. It has also been found to help mediate retinol’s potential for skin irritation.
Next, we fortified our formula with niacinamide, which is key to preventing barrier damage. If you’re not familiar, one of the most exciting niacinamide benefits for the skin is its ability to boost natural barrier defenses.
Finally, we added a few important skin-soothing ingredients like chamomile-derived bisabolol and aloe vera.
Retinal > retinol: Cosmetic, over-the-counter retinoids come in a few forms with varying levels of efficacy. The impact of a retinoid on the skin is based on how many conversions it must go through once applied to the skin.
The standard logic is that the more conversions, the gentler a retinoid will be. This isn’t fundamentally true, though.
In our Enzyme-Active Retinol Serum, we used retinaldehyde (a.k.a. retinal with an a), which only goes through one conversion to become retinoic acid. This makes it nearly 20 times more impactful than retinol, but amazingly, it isn’t associated with more irritation.
What makes retinaldehyde so unique is that it only converts into the precise amount of retinoic acid that the skin’s receptors can use. In other words, the skin isn’t overwhelmed by a very potent active, but it’s still able to draw maximum benefits.