Retinol Is The Devil

I mean, it's not a devil like Rush Limbaugh or heroin, but I still think it's pretty bad. Granted, I'm no scientist. Or dermatologist. Or someone who didn't cheat her way through the only chemistry class she ever took (by the way, thanks Gregg and Tom - I couldn't have passed without you!). But I am a person who started getting wrinkles and zits at the same time and was told by numerous magazines and websites that Retinol would save my skin.

Now you could argue that my skin has just gotten worse in the last 8 years because I've had 3 kids, been in the sun too much and turned 40. In fact, that was the argument I would have given you as I was buying my retinol based skin cleanser and moisturizer at Walgreens.

 Then I forgot my retinol stuff when we went to Florida.

I was convinced that I was going to break out in some horrible way, but I really didn't want to send Hot Guy on yet another run to the local Publix until it actually happened. I also thought my wrinkles might turn into craters, which is why I slathered regular moisturizer onto them each night.

Instead, during my week without retinol my skin improved. So I didn't use it when I got home. Just as a little experiment. I figured the water or the lack of stress in Florida were what saved my skin. But it's now been over a month and I haven't broken out at all. In any way. My skin is less splotchy than it's been in years. My wrinkles even appear to be holding steady.

Before writing this, I tried to do a little actual research about retinoids (while all of my cosmetic products call the Vitamin A derivative "retinol" on the bottle, most reputable sites I found called the topical stuff "retinoids"). The most reputable thing I found was an article summarizing actual scientific research by the Environmental Working Group. Other reputable sites suggested not using retinoids if they caused peeling, redness or other irritation. But that never happened to me.

The University of Maryland Medical Center points out that over-the-counter retinol products are unregulated and may not contain any retinol at all. On my tube and jar, it's listed as the only active ingredient, but even that doesn't mean anything. So I suppose it's quite possible that it's not the retinol/retinoid that screwed up my skin, but one of the many inactive ingredients. I don't know.

The main thing I found in my research were sites that purported to be written by a dermatologist or a make-up artist and filled with testimonials about how awesome retinoids are. So I decided to write my own testimonial.

          Do not use retinol products on your skin, especially if you're just picking them up at the 
          drugstore. The more hippie all natural stuff I use, the better my 40 year old skin looks. And if 
          could go back and tell the teenage me one thing, it would be to only use hippie all natural 
          stuff on my skin. And to not cheat in chemistry, so that maybe I could understand all the
          studies described on the National Institutes of Health website. 


Do you/have you used a retinol product? What do you think? Is my skin just weird?