#TRETINOIN CREAM SKIN#

#TRETINOIN CREAM SKIN#

However, the skin lightening effect is not as strong as the gold-standard hydroquinone. It works by both preventing clumping of melanin in basal cells (skin cells at the bottom of the epidermis) and by accelerating epidermal turnover and so the loss of melanin. Not only that, but it also makes your pores produce less sebum that helps the pores to stay nice and clean and not get clogged up by an excess sebum and dead skin cells.Īnother notable benefit of tretinoin is skin lightening. It normalizes keratinization meaning that it prevents dead skin cells from sticking together and clogging the pores. We have already written that tretinoin was originally developed to treat acne, and it does.

Simply put, pretty much everything you could want from an anti-aging ingredient. The net result of all the things tretinoin does is less wrinkled, firmer, smoother and tighter skin. It also makes the epidermis thicker and compacts the outermost layer of the skin, the stratum corneum. natural moisturizing factor glycosaminoglycans (GAGs), or the skin protein, filaggrin.

If that wasn't enough, tretinoin also helps aging skin in a bunch of other ways: it stimulates not only collagen (type I and III), but other important skin elements as well, e.g. It inhibits collagen-destroying enzymes called matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs, that are increased by UVB) and it's also proven to boost the skins own collagen synthesis. Tretinoin is great because it works in both ways. The former will prevent wrinkles and loss of firmness, the latter has a chance to repair some of the existing damage. You can do two other things: one is to preserve the existing collagen in your skin as much as possible and the other is to convince the skin to create some more. It's like throwing poles at a ramshackle tent on the ground and hoping that the poles will magically fall into the right place and erect the tent, it simply does not work that way. Adding collagen to the skin from your serums/moisturizers does not work, though. It acts like tent poles that make sure the tent fabric is nice and firm. When it comes to skin aging, collagen plays a big role. Our skin cells contain retinoic acid receptors and tretinoin binds directly to these receptors and changes basic cell behaviour, like gene expression. The reason why retinoids, especially tretinoin, are such an all-around skin problem solver is that they work on the skin at a cellular level and they make your skin cells behave in a healthy and normal way. Don't worry, we will not list out all of them, but if you have one (or more) of the common skin problems (like wrinkles, loss of firmness, dull skin, acne or hyperpigmentation), retinoids will improve this. Leslie Baumann writes in her great Cosmetic Dermatology book that 'there are more than 125 distinct dermatologic disorders for which there is credible evidence of retinoid efficacy'. Even today, tretinoin is the only thing approved by the FDA in the topical anti-aging field, so it's a really big deal.ĭr. It went so well, that the data was submitted to the FDA (the authority that approves drugs in the US) and it approved tretinoin for 'use against photo damage'. It was originally intended to treat acne but acne patients in the clinical trials started to report smoother and less wrinkled skin so the research into its anti-aging benefits soon began. Tretinoin itself was developed in the late 1960s by two guys named James Fulton and Albert Kligman. Twelve years later, retinol was successfully synthesized and since then, vitamin A derivatives started to pop up. In 1931 Paul Karrer won the Nobel prize for figuring out the structure of vitamin A. Retinoids are not something new and the intense research into them started quite a while ago. FYI, tretinoin is a naturally occurring thing and can be found in good quality rosehip oil. Retinoic acid is a kind of synonym for tretinoin, or to be exact all-trans-retinoic-acids are exactly the same as tretinoin. Retinoids include beta-carotene (the thing in orange vegetables, like carrot or sweet potato), retinol (pure vitamin A itself), and tretinoin. There are a few other forms, but let's not get caught up in the details too much. It's the real deal.īefore we dive deep into this topic, let's just clear up some vocab: the word ' retinoids' refers to a group of compounds that are all derived from vitamin A. Tretinoin works! It's proven and it's the gold standard in anti-aging technology. If you wanna get the best possible anti-aging (and a bunch of other) effects from your skincare products, tretinoin (or one of the other form of retinoids) has to be in your skincare routine.

Tretinoin cream