Many beauty enthusiasts are obsessed with using retinol for acne. It’s pretty much the next big thing (for however long it may last), so there’s no wonder that so many beauty centers have picked up on the trend and incorporated this treatment in their ‘menu.’ If you’re reluctant to acquire an over-the-counter product and attempt to decipher it yourself, that’s fine. You can just hit up your local salon and rest assured that at least the person applying it actually knows what they’re doing.
Here’s everything you should know about this treatment, including a breakdown of how it works and the possible side effects that could potentially affect your skin.
Why Use Retinol for Acne?
First of all, if the term is fairly foreign to you, retinol is basically a synthetic compound derived from vitamin A. Beauty lines include it in their products very frequently due to its ability to fade fine lines and wrinkles, to reduce redness and dark marks, and others.
What retinol essentially does that can help fight back the effects of acne is deeply exfoliate. It may sound strange, but it’s actually a really important step toward an acne-free skin. You shed away dead cells, leaving room for regeneration. This makes retinol the perfect ally for other various topical treatments that you’re using to get rid of acne.
So, if retinol seems to be such an effective, clinically proven compound, why aren’t even more people hopping on board of this train? Well…
The Downside of Retinol
Within the first uses, a retinol treatment will pretty much always make your breakout worse. This is enough to turn off people who leap into this treatment with the expectation that it will grant them clear and clean skin right off the bat. Don’t you worry – this is all perfectly normal, as plenty of dermatologists will be able to tell you.
But why? Why is it that your skin first needs to turn red and your acne needs to worsen before it goes poof?
The answer is relatively simple. Retinol also prevents future breakouts. In order to do so, it exposes the rashes brewing underneath the skin and that have yet to surface. This way, it will deal with all of your pimples at once and you won’t have to return to the salon a billion times to pop them one by one.
Other Possible Side Effects
There aren’t really any side effects per se, but rather there are some precautions you should be mindful of.
For starters, make sure that you schedule your appointment some time during the evening. Exposing a retinol-treated skin to the effects of sunlight might lead to a health hazard. Furthermore, if you have fair skin or if you are generally sensitive, you should check in with a doctor first before getting this treatment.
Wrapping Up
In conclusion, should you use retinol for acne? If your acne is medium to severe and you’ve tried other classic treatments that have proven themselves useless, give it a shot. Trying it out for the first time at a beauty center is really the best way to go to avoid complications.