Niacinamide and Retinol: Why This Duo is a Game-Changer for Your Skincare Routine
This article will educate readers on the skin-enhancing benefits of combining niacinamide and retinol while offering guidance on how to safely and effectively incorporate this powerful duo into their skincare routines.
The types of skin care ingredients you have in any product you use are important because they can drastically improve the health of your skin, or they can cause irritation, long-term damage, and other issues that disrupt the natural balance of your skin.
More importantly, the combination of ingredients found in your skincare routine can detract from one another or complement one another. Niacinamide and retinol are two combinations that work together as a powerful duo, calming, strengthening, and hydrating the skin barrier while also promoting cell turnover and reducing fine lines and wrinkles.
What Are Niacinamide and Retinol?
Can you use niacinamide with retinol? Yes! In fact, there are many benefits of using niacinamide and retinol together, given how well each helps your skin.
Niacinamide
Niacinamide is a form of vitamin B3. Vitamin B3 is naturally found in things like:
- Beans
- Meat
- Fish
- Milk
- Eggs
- Green vegetables
Most people have heard of niacin, and niacinamide is a form of niacin. You can have niacinamide naturally produced in your body when you have an excess of niacin, but that same niacinamide gets used to nourish and protect your skin or create acne treatments because of its many benefits.
8 Ways Niacinamide Helps the Skin
It is known for its ability to help calm, strengthen, and hydrate the skin's barrier. How does this work?
- Niacinamide helps to support your lipid barrier, sometimes called your ceramide barrier.
- Through that increased barrier, niacinamide helps your skin retain moisture, which can be good for anyone who struggles with dry skin or just wants increased hydration.
- Niacinamide reduces inflammation and blotchiness, making it useful in skin care products to treat things like acne or eczema while also minimizing the size of your pores.
- Niacinamide regulates the amount of oil produced by your sebaceous glands, which can control excess oil for people with certain skin conditions.
- Niacinamide helps rebuild skin cells and subsequently protects those new skin cells from UV damage.
- Niacinamide protects new cells against environmental and oxidative stress from things like sunlight exposure and toxins.
- Research has found that niacinamide can help lighten dark spots by increasing collagen.
- Niacinamide can reduce signs of aging, particularly fine lines, wrinkles, and other signs of sun damage.
Finding skin care products that include niacinamide with retinol can be very helpful because it brings more vitamin B3 to your skin.
Notes:
It is water-soluble when it comes in the form of creams, moisturizers, and other skincare products. This means that the niacinamide part of your products does get lost with exposure to water or sweat.
For example: If you apply a face care product that contains niacinamide and retinol together, but then you immediately start sweating or go out in the rain, and it gets washed away, your skin won't have time to absorb it or its benefits.
The half-life of niacinamide is only a few hours, which means any product that contains it should get absorbed through the skin barrier somewhat quickly, but after a few hours, your skin won't be absorbing any more benefits.
Retinol
Much the same as niacinamide, retinol is a naturally occurring derivative of vitamin A. Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin that is usually stored in your liver.
There are two types of vitamin A, one of which, preformed, is found in things like:
- Fish
- Meat
- Dairy
The other of which, precursor or provitamin A, is found in things like:
- Fruits
- Vegetables
It is preformed vitamin A, the kind that comes from fortified foods and meat or dairy products that is what creates retinol. Retinol is an active form of preformed vitamin A.
Retinol is quickly becoming one of the most popular ingredients in skincare products, recognized for its anti-aging benefits, promoting cell turnover, and targeting fine lines and wrinkles.
8 Ways Retinol Helps the Skin
It works in many ways to help the skin:
- Retinol encourages skin cell turnover. This turnover helps to remove dead skin cells from the face, leading to natural exfoliation. The result is a smoother texture across your skin with better skin tone.
- Retinol increases the production of elastin and collagen, both of which are proteins that help strengthen the skin and reduce fine lines and wrinkles. Not only does this remove the signs of aging, but it also helps lead to better firmness in your skin.
- Retinol has been shown to bring balance to melanin production, and in many people, this can help remove dark spots and any discoloration of the skin.
- Retinol improves cell adhesion, which alleviates high levels of clogged pores and acne breakouts.
- Retinol blocks inflammation pathways, which can help reduce signs of acne and other breakouts.
- Retinol thickens your epidermis, which means you get a thicker protective layer of the skin on the outside.
- Retinol, through its exfoliation characteristics, can alleviate clogged pores and prevent them in the future.
- Retinol increases the production of things like hyaluronic acid in your skin. These are natural chemicals that encourage water retention and hydration on the top layer of skin, leaving your skin moist and plump.
Notes:
Retinol is a very common product for anti-wrinkle or anti-aging skincare lines as well as acne treatments, but in these cases, it typically takes an average of 3 months before you achieve ideal results.
If you are using a retinol-based product to treat long-term aging signs or a skin condition like acne, it might take up to 6 months before you see optimum results.
For this reason, it is important that you start off slowly with any retinol-based cream, serum, or other product and that you use it with regularity.
While each ingredient is beneficial on its own, together, they offer complementary benefits.
Can You Use Niacinamide with Retinol?
Many people ask, "Is it okay to use niacinamide with retinol?" and the answer is YES!
It is absolutely acceptable, and in fact, there are several benefits to using niacinamide with retinol.
Niacinamide can balance out retinol's intensity, reducing the risk of irritation. When used properly, niacinamide enhances the efficacy of retinol.
Benefits of Using Niacinamide and Retinol Together
So, what are the benefits of using niacinamide and retinol together?
- Reduced Irritation: The combination of niacinamide and retinol actually strengthens the reduction of irritation on the skin.
- Enhanced Anti-Aging Effects: Using niacinamide with retinol as part of your skincare routine doubles down on the anti-aging benefits you get while simultaneously improving your cell turnover.
- Improved Skin Tone and Texture: With products that have niacinamide with retinol, you will see improved skin tone and texture with lighter skin tone on dark spots, fewer lines and wrinkles, and overall improved plumpness, hydration, and balance.
- Balanced Oil Production: Using niacinamide and retinol offers balanced oil production, so you don't have too much oil in your sebaceous glands, and you don't have to contend with the same types of acne or eczema problems.
Can you use niacinamide with retinol? You can, and you should. For many people, the benefits are strengthened given the fact that the niacinamide can reduce the irritation and intensity of the retinol, bringing better balance to the skin.
Conclusion
Overall, there are several easy ways to incorporate niacinamide and retinol into your routine. Start in small doses, with one product at a time. Give yourself time to see how your skin reacts. Moreover, be patient; sometimes, redness might happen at the start but go away after a few days. Small doses are key. As you build up over time, work toward regular daily doses and products. Overall, start incorporating this combination slowly and observe the positive changes in your skin over time.
About Dermoi
Dermoi is a cutting-edge skincare store specializing in scientifically-verified products. Our in-house scientific experts meticulously evaluate each product to ensure it meets our stringent standards of efficacy. At Dermoi, every product you purchase is thoroughly researched and hand-selected for its ability to deliver remarkable results for your skin.
If you have questions about your skin or need advice on skincare products, our team of scientists is available to assist. Contact us via email at [email protected] or call (0)20 3963 9930 between 11am and 4pm, Monday to Friday.
