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Highlighting the existence of different retinoids is good. I have used retinol serums and a tretinoin cream (not at the same time). Retinol products are the most popular in the retinoid skincare category, and are sold over the counter, so reading specifically about them might be worthwhile.
Sharing my experience here:
- VERY white skin, prone to dryness.
- Had been on a cleanser+moisturizer combo before going to sleep for most of my adult life. Very liberal use of sunscreen.
- Came across some research on different retinoids, started with a medium strength retinol serum (The Ordinary 0.5% Retinol Serum in Squalane) before moving to a higher strength retinol serum (The Ordinary 1% Retinol Serum in Squalane). Three drops on a dry skin after using a cleanser, one to each cheek, one to my forehead, spread evenly. Moisturizer applied after letting it settle for around 10 minutes.
- I chose a cheap product ($9.99) because by default I'm quite distrustful of the beauty industry, and assume that simple and cheap is probably good as long as it has the active ingredient that I want.
- I chose to start with the 0.5% strength and not the 0.25% for the same reason. My skin was kind of irritated for the first few days, but could handle 0.5% just fine. I moved to 1% in around 1.5 months after using 0.5% daily.
- I chose a cheap product ($9.99) because by default I'm quite distrustful of the beauty industry, and assume that simple and cheap is probably good as long as it has the active ingredient that I want.
- After roughly six months of using a retinol serum, I moved to a prescription tretinoin cream. Retinol already had quite a big effect, and I'm not sure using tretinoin is that big of an additional difference, at least for me. I do find using a cream easier than a serum, though.
I tend to favour simple and cheap products that have an active ingredient that have at least some amount of research backing up its effectiveness, and that are often recommended by dermatologists. Fancier and expensive products seem like snake oil to me, but I could be wrong on this. My intuition is that less products and less chemicals on your face is probably better than more, and I am quite suspicious of the lengthy multi-step regimens some people subscribe to.
I currently use the following:
- Before going to bed:
- CeraVe Hydrating Facial Cleanser. Comes in a nice pump. I really love how clean it makes my skin feel.
- Prescription tretinoin cream.
- CeraVe Moisturizing Cream. I chose the tub because it was cheaper per mL. Quite thick, good for dry Winters. They also have a lighter feeling ones, but this is good for my current dry climate and skin prone to dryness.
- After waking up:
- SPF 50 sunscreen. Re-apply around mid-day.
- If you are able to access them, Japanese and Korean sunscreens are amazing. Can't recommend them enough. They feel like you are not even wearing sunscreen. Leagues and miles ahead of Western sunscreens. This is apparently due to regulatory issues, and the fact that Westerners often ignore the instruction to re-apply sunscreen after a few hours of wear, which has incentivized Western sunscreen manufacturers to optimize for longer lasting (and slimier) sunscreens. Any time friend goes to Japan I tell them to bring me a huge supply of Bioré UV Aqua Rich SPF 50 sunscreen, which is really expensive in the West ($15-30), but really cheap in Japan (like, $4).
- I am not sure if you actually need to have sunscreen during days which have a relatively low UV index, but all the recommendations say you need to use sunscreen if you are using a retinol or tretinoin product, so maybe there is a reason for that. I tried researching the reason why your skin might be more susceptible to damaging itself, but didn't find anything that seemed obviously correct or applicable to topical use of retinol or tretinoin to me.
- SPF 50 sunscreen. Re-apply around mid-day.
I felt a bit validated when I saw that Bryan Johnson also uses CeraVe products, heh.
I change my sheets often, so I tend to skip using a cleanser in the morning due to laziness. If you don't change your bedsheets at least once a week, you might want to do cleanser in the morning as well.