About face
How A retinoid refusenik, beauty writer Ingeborg van Lotringen, became a (careful) convert
Like keto diets, prodigious water drinking and doing 10,000 steps a day, using retinoid skincare has become somewhat of a modern ‘must’: if you’re not at it, chances are you feel like the loner in the playground. It’s the ingredient we’re told to turn to above all others for smoother, plumper, more glowing skin, thanks to its cell-renewing capabilities. Why would you want to fly in the face of such seemingly incontrovertible proof of its brilliance and millions of devoted fans? Yes, the itching, flaking, irritating side-effects are also well-known, but in refusing to ‘go through a journey’ with them, are you doing yourself a disservice? It’s a question I’ve asked myself countless times over my 25 years in the beauty industry, with a definitive answer very slow in coming. As with anything in beauty (and life), it’s not straightforward, and expert opinion varies. Am I convinced a retinoid is a non-negotiable? No. Have I figured out how to use it myself, and what to recommend others? Yes. But it’s taken me a quarter century.
The first wave of mass-market retinol (the most famous of the cosmetic retinoids, a family of vitamin A compounds) creams and serums happened in the late 1990s. Reports of their fast-acting skin-smoothing prowess enticed me into buying one, but within days my face developed a red-raw rash that took a week to clear up.
Retinoids work by speeding up the rate at which fresh collagen and elastin are produced and old cells at the skin’s surface are shed, but this can come with inflammation, especially when skin is naturally dry, stressed or delicate. Some retinoids are more aggressive than others (it depends on how fast each converts into retinoic acid, the active molecule inside all retinoids, once it’s absorbed into the skin, and on how your cream is formulated). The original retinol formulas, by dint of being relatively basic, bit me hard. I wasn’t alone, it transpired. By the mid-noughties, many of the big skincare brands had come to the conclusion that retinol was simply too powerful in non-professional hands. I heartily agreed and became a self-satisfied retinol refusenik. It didn’t, however, stop me noticing the glowing and seemingly ageless skin of colleagues like the beauty director of this very publication, Eve Cameron, who by her own admission had used prescription-only retinoic acid for years. It had cleared up her acne and gone on to give her a glorious complexion. Intrigued, I nonetheless concluded she must be a rare exception with skin like a rhino.
I stuck to my antioxidants and SPF, and fared nicely on them in my 30s, my philosophy being to treat skin like a piece of fine silk. But trends in skincare, like fashion, are cyclical, and skin ages. A decade later, retinoids were back with a vengeance. The difference this time was that the options were more plentiful and the formulations more sophisticated, making it easier to find one that suited your skin. That hasn’t stopped plenty of people from going overboard, though. The rising instances of sensitivity and rosacea in recent years are routinely linked to a surfeit of stress and overenthusiastic dabbling in retinoids and those other heavy hitters of cell turnover, acids. Being acutely aware of the fact that inflammation is one of the most efficient skin agers, the question for me remained: why risk using an ingredient that could so easily tip over from being beneficial into destructive?
‘Vanity,’ came the answer. Now well into my 40s, consistency
and gentleness were keeping my skin healthy but, much as I believe we should embrace our lines, I wanted something more potent. And there was still nothing in the world more proven to make a visible difference to skin than retinoids.
For me, the solution came in 2016 with the launch of Medik8’s first r-retinoate serum. ‘It’s a Korean-engineered compound that’s basically pure retinoic acid plus retinol, but it won’t irritate your skin,’ the brand’s CEO told me. I didn’t believe a word of it, but I tried it anyway. To my astonishment, my face remained calm and I never looked back. Today, at 52 years old, my skin is ageing but not half as fast as it should do, given the levels of stress and menopausal onslaught I’m under. Skin doctors tend to comment on my ‘retinol glow’, a sort of perma-radiance that’s apparently the retinoid user’s giveaway. I use gallons of other skincare as well – barrier builders, vitamin C, SPF50, gentle polyhydroxy acids – so the retinoid can’t claim all the glory, but there’s no question it’s working.
Do I scoff at my past hesitancy, or think everyone should get on the retinoids as soon as possible? I don’t. Because when I’m run-down or extra stressed, or when I use my r-retinoate for more than four days on the trot, I get rashes and sometimes even big patches of inflammation – proof that retinoid use should be circumspect, bespoke and constantly adjusted. Cosmetic physician Dr Sophie Shotter advises: ‘It needs professional guidance. Used correctly, retinoids will thicken, plump and strengthen. Cross the line into over-use, which is entirely dependent on individual skin type and circumstances, and trouble ensues.’ Trouble which, some believe, extends beyond causing inflammation and making skin more susceptible to sun damage. ‘If you have congested, acneic skin, you need a retinoid to normalise and refine it. But if it’s thin or dry, continuously speeding up cell turnover will eventually leave it thinner and ageing faster,’ says facial therapist Mina Lee, who, as a South Korean, is steeped in her nation’s skincare philosophy of healing, protection and extreme gentleness.
It’s a contentious opinion (most Western skin specialists say that retinoids do not thin the skin), but it’s backed by some. ‘As skin ages, its building blocks for renewal naturally diminish,’ says Dr Ben Johnson of Osmosis Beauty. ‘Any form of sped-up cell turnover forces skin to do unnecessary repair work at the skin surface, shifting already-depleted resources from maintaining the deep-lying dermis where collagen is made. It ultimately weakens the support structure and integrity of the skin, actually speeding up the ageing process.’ In Dr Johnson’s view, effective skincare should centre on antioxidants to protect skin cells’ precious DNA, alongside niacinamide, vitamin C and retinaldehyde (or retinal), which he says does ‘minimal damage’.
But if this gives you pause for thought about using retinoids, there are ways to incorporate them safely and reap their rewards without the drawbacks. It’s all about introducing them slowly and carefully, building up their potency and regularity of use: as skin gets adjusted to vitamin A, its potential to irritate will drop. Start with a gentle-ish retinoid, such as granactive retinoid (aka hydroxypinacolone retinoate), retinal or retinyl retinoate at a low concentration, or with retinol itself at less than 0.1%. Pick a sophisticated formula with buffering and moisturising agents, such as ceramides, and anti-inflammatories like bisabolol. Apply no more than a pea-sized amount, no more than twice a week at first, and layer it over a moisturiser to slow down absorption. Do that for a few weeks before increasing its use or skipping the moisturiser-as-buffer (if needed, you can apply moisturiser after your retinoid once skin is touch-dry, advises skin specialist Dr Sam Bunting). Once that goes well, you might increase the potency (but never think strongest is best). Brands such as Dr Sam’s, Medik8, Trinny London, Skin Rocks and Skinceuticals do retinoids that step up in strength. And if skin flares up? Stop for a bit or take a step back. Some skin types will never make friends with retinoids and shouldn’t want to. There are plenty of alternatives, such as vitamin C, peptides, growth factors and bakuchiol: all boost skin regeneration in their own non-irritating ways.
As for me, I’ve found my sweet spot with my r-retinoate serum, four times a week. Using it that way appears to have made my skin stronger and kept me looking as fresh as a daisy. And that, I think, is a result.