Retinol 0.5 Complex, 1 oz.

I understand SkinMedica is expensive, but it is well worth every penny! Using it at night before bedtime, I can definitely see the change in my skin. I ran out and moved to the 1.0 and I’m absolutely in love. Definitely helps tighten the skin, lessens wrinkles and just the overall health of your skin so much better

Solid retinol product albeit quite strong. I only use it two times a week but I'm very happy with it.

I use this on my face, décolletage, neck, behind my ears, and top of hands at night about 30 minutes before I lay down. It’s working wonders!! I’ve used it for a little while now and right off the bat it helped with my eye bags I seem to get when I sleep nowadays. This is a HUGE deal for me as I’ve tried so many home remedies to help with this and nothing worked, even so far as putting my whole face in an ice bath (hello brain freeze). It’s improving my skin texture and helping with dullness. Make sure you only use at night and avoid using too much, if any, around the very thin parts of your eyes as it can cause flaking to occur bc your skin doesn’t exfoliate in that area as fast and this product causes you to produce more cells aka ending up with too much equals flakings. I use it twice a week and that took about 4 weeks to get up to. If you use it too often you’ll get flakes as well, kinda looks like a sunburn peeling. Don’t use if your skin is damaged from the sun or if you plan on being in the sun the next day. It’s basically damaging your skin so your body sends more collagen to that area to “heal” it so if you damage it with the product and then with the sun then it’s overwhelming and can harm your skin vs helping it. Sunscreen constantly. I set an alarm on my phone for every two hours to reapply. If you use this product correctly it can do wonders for your appearance but please do a reasonable amount of research before you use. Happy customer here, good luck beauties!!

This serum really wirks

I've been using this for about a week or so, and it can take up to 12 weeks for an over the counter retinol product to show any changes. This came as a highly recommended retinol product from another site that does reviews of beauty products and their ingredients. I use this as a part of a beauty routine of several products, so nailing down whether this product works in and of itself will be difficult. Usage...One of the reasons I went with SkinMedica is the specific information about how much retinol is in the product and the fact that you can step up. I started out with the 0.5 to make sure that my skin wouldn't become overly irritated. I switch off daily applying this over my nighttime moisturizer one night, and under the next. I don't have highly sensitive skin, and I've used it daily without irritation. About the packaging and pump...This comes in a thick glass bottle, which I know because I dropped the first bottle before I even used it (yikes!). The thick, opaque glass bottle is important in preserving the retinol so that it doesn't breakdown from sunlight exposure. The pump releases product easily. Concerns about dyes...This is the reason for the 4 stars. If you are concerned about dyes in your products, you might want to reconsider SkinMedica. I dropped the bottle on the toilet tank cover, breaking the bottle and wound up with product all over my toilet seat lid and vinyl flooring. Having just broken an expensive, never used bottle of face product, I had to walk away and recover. I had to go out, so I didn't clean up for a few hours. (Yes, it took me that long to recover and deal with it.) The toilet lid and vinyl flooring are stained yellow, which speaks to the dyes. However, that was a highly concentrated amount of product, more than you would ever put on your face at one time or even in a few weeks, so it's not going to dye your skin yellow. When it comes out of the pump, it is almost white, but it is yellow if you unfortunately get a glimpse inside the bottle.

I abused Retin-A for many years and had to stop using it because my skin got so red, flaky and irritated. Now I'm trying to adjust to retinol for its anti-aging effects. I have very oily, red, inflamed, acne-prone skin that is also thin and sensitive (yeah, freakin' awesome for me). I tried Paula's Choice similar strength retinol but found it was too strong for me. It irritated my skin and caused break-outs. My esthetician says you need to build up to using retinol every other day. Basically, you need to use it continuously to get the anti-aging benefits. This product is very good. It is effective but not so strong as to unduly irritate the skin. I've battled flaky skin for years due to the abuse of benzoyl peroxide, Retin-A and other products, so I go through spurts using this as I can't stand being "flaky" all the time. Any retinol product will make you "flaky" - that's the gig - so you need to use more moisturizer when on retinol. But this product, when I'm using it, makes my skin brighter and more even. It does not irritate my skin as past products have done. But it has sufficient strength to make a difference, if used regularly. Rated high for overall quality of ingredients by Paula's Choice. It works, and I believe, is one of the top Retinols on the market.

Excellent

This is the real deal, so make sure if you haven't used retinol before or have sensitive skin you are sandwiching with hydrating products. I have used many popular retinol products and never gotten the results I have with this one, it's a keeper.