When it comes to skincare, a slew of lotions, serums, creams, and moisturizers is available on the market. Among all the ingredients that are used to create beauty formulas, vitamin A is something hard to beat, often found marketed as ‘retinol serums’. And thankfully, there are now clean beauty choices for this essential vitamin in the form of effective, cruelty-free retinol serums too.
Known for encouraging cell-turnover, boosting natural collagen levels, reducing dark spots, treating acne, and smoothing wrinkles, vitamin A is an excellent component of a good skin care regimen. It is recommended by countless dermatologists around the world, who prescribe it either as an oral drug (isotretinoin, e.g. Accutane) or topical gel (tretinoin, e.g. Retin-A).
While vitamin A provides intense care, improves appearance, and gives blemish-free skin, the prescription versions–both pill and gel forms–produce unpleasant side-effects for many people (plus they require a visit to your doctor to get them). Thankfully, you don’t have to miss out on the benefits of vitamin A altogether by avoiding the prescription versions; instead, add a high-quality retinol serum to your skin care routine.Let’s check out what exactly retinolis and its benefits and uses.
What Is Retinol?
Retinol is a form of vitamin A (specifically, in chemical terms, the alcohol version of it) that was first discovered in the early 20th century. It requires conversion within your skin cells via a couple of steps to the active form, retinoic acid, which acts inside the nucleus to produce its effects.
Different Types of Retinoids
People find it quite difficult to differentiate products that consist of retinol, tretinoin, and retinoid. A retinoid is any vitamin A derivative or compound, whether synthetic or naturally occurring. Retinoids include retinol, retinal and retinoic acid, as well as retinyl palmitate. All these retinoids have been used in vitamin A serums, but they have differences related to their stability and effectiveness.
As mentioned earlier, the active form (retinoic acid) can cause harsh side effects such as skin irritation, redness, and blistering–hence its prescription requirement. This irritation occurs when the retinoic acid binds to unwanted receptors outside the cell, causing reduced ceramide production, and consequently redness and flaking. (Some forms of pure retinol do this too.) That’s why it’s often advised that you gradually increase your dose to build up tolerance.
Retinal, although it is an effective retinoid, is very unstable in heat, light, and oxygen, so can be easily broken down before it reaches it target cells. Retinyl palmitate is a storage form of vitamin A; it’s not as easily absorbed into the skin cells and converted to retinoic acid, so it’s not thought to be as effective a retinoid as other types. (There’ve also been some reports that it may be associated with an increased risk of skin cancers, as it causes DNA damage within skin cells exposed to UVA light).
Pure retinol is prone to oxidation, which makes it less effective. However, if the retinol is protected by an oil ‘envelope’, then it withstands oxidation and is effectively stabilized.
Why Should We Use Retinol?
Hopefully, you now understand the various different forms of retinoids! We consider vitamin A to be an essential vitamin for skin, because of the many beneficial effects it has on the skin, including the following:
- regulates rate of cell turnover
- slows it down in acneic skin so that the sebaceous (oil) glands are smaller and less active (and therefore the skin produces less oil)
- speeds it up in aging skin, causing a more compact youthful skin
- reduces inflammation
- reverses DNA damage from UV rays
- improves collagen (reduces its destruction and promotes its formation) so that wrinkles are reduced
- improves pigmentation
- blocks an enzyme responsible for production of melanin pigment
- reduces the size of melanocytes (cells that produce melanin)
- reduces clumping of pigment
- increases cell turnover so pigment is more efficiently removed from the skin surface.
Retinol Serums at Skin Elegance
At Skin Elegance, we have two fantastic, clean beauty retinol serums from Synergie Skin, containing high levels of two different types of retinoid. Like all Synergie products, they’re formulated according to Clean Science® principles, meaning they combine the best of botanicals with the latest cosmeceutical science, but without any ingredients with questionable safety data. (And of course they’re certified cruelty-free.)
Ultimate A is Synergie’s ‘entry level’ retinol serum. Its retinol is in the form of Rovisome™, which is pure stabilized retinol. This both protects it from oxidation and allows for deeper penetration into the skin. And because it’s highly specific for the cell receptors, it doesn’t bind to other receptors on the way to the cell surface, so is less likely to cause irritation. That means you typically don’t have to start using it slowly (unless you have very sensitive skin, in which case we suggest you start by using it very second night for the first week).
Acceler-A was launched by Synergie in 2019. It contains a brand new form of vitamin A called HPR, which has a simpler metabolic pathway (making it more effective).
HPR is combined with green tea and CoQ10 as Synergie’s proprietary RetiGen™ formulation, with added benefits (e.g. antioxidant properties, improved collagen and elastin production).
Because it’s more effective, Acceler-A should only be used after your skin has already got used to a retinol serum, for example after you’ve used 1-2 bottles of Ultimate A first (i.e. after 3-6 months). Then introduce Acceler-A carefully, by using alternating it with Ultimate A for the first 1-2 weeks.
How to Use Synergie’s Retinol Serums
We advise using retinol serums at night, as UV light can make the product inactive. And never use products containing vitamin C or AHAs/BHAs at the same time as your retinol serum, as they will destroyit and make it ineffective. Remember to start with Ultimate A and only move to Acceler-A after 3-6 months (or not at all, if you have sensitive skin). Always use a sunscreen as part of your skin care routine; they protect against the damage that UV light causes and so there’s less work for the vitamin A to do!
Finally, if you’re pregnant or breastfeeding, don’t use vitamin A products at all. For more information about products to avoid during pregancy, see this additional resource “Skincare Ingredients To Avoid While Pregnant“.
For a complete understanding of the benefits of retinol serums and even more details about how to use them, refer to this article on our website.
Conclusion
A retinol serum is an essential part of any beauty routine and something we recommend you should introduce to your skin from a young age. Make an even better choice for your skin, your overall health, and the environment by choosing a clean beauty product. Head to our Beauty Shop for the entire range of Synergie products, to get your skin looking its absolute best.
