Let’s geek out for a bit. Last week I tried out a product that contained retinal, not retinol, but retinal. This made me go on a journey to try and learn the differences and more about the ingredients overall. As quickly as I can, let me tell you what I found out.
Retinal is one of the class of compounds referred to as retinoids. All of them are added to help you get smoother skin, fewer wrinkles, and less acne. Tretinoin, or retinoic acid, is the form that is readily used by your body. Retinal and retinol both need to be converted to retinoic acid by your body. But why not just use tretinoin if it is already ready to go? Well, it is already the usable form retinoic acid, but it can have more side effects. Because it tends to be irritating and drying, brands err on the side of use the gentler versions. There are three other versions actually that get used in skincare. Here is the order of the intensity and order of conversion.
- Tretinoin (retinoic acid)- Most intense
- Retinal
- Retinol
- Retinyl palmitate (least intense, needs most conversion steps)
In short, the difference between all of them is how many steps your body needs to take to convert the product into the usable form, retinoic acid. The more steps your body has to go through to convert the product, the further it is away, the less harsh and more tolerable than straight up tretinoin.
That’s it, if you are interested in trying out retinoids and are brand new to using them, start at the bottom of the list and work your way up.
Here are some articles on INCI Decoder about each of the ingredients you might find helpful.
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