Tretinoin and almond oil use - my experience
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Fri May 08, 2015 10:46 pm

Hi everyone! This forum has been so useful to me that I wanted to share with you all something I've been doing for the last month, and that has been working wonderful for me.

So I'm 34 years old, and last year I decided to start using tretinoin. I have no wrinkles, except some creasing under my eyes (that I had my entire life), but I had clogged pores, lots and lots of them. No active acne, just ugly skin tone, and hidden clogged pores that made my skin look "bumpy" and thick.

I followed the general recommendations to the letter: I built up tolerance, started low dose, and applied it at night an hour after washing my face. I didn't want to mess with absorption so I didn't apply any moisturizer nor before neither after the tretinoin.
The cream worked like a charm. I was able to extract all of the collected sebum and dead cells I had in my skin for years, I had a more even skin tone, my skin glowed and looked smoother.

But it was DRY. I used all sorts of moisturizers during the day, and I exfoliated all the flakiness away. Still, my under eye area was dry like sandpaper and I looked older, more wrinkly in the eye area. My neck was irritated and red, and my skin around the mouth had some cracking.
I sucked it up and tried to deal with the dryness the best I could, it was something new for me because I had very oily skin all of my life. Still, the results I was getting from the tretinoin were so worth it.

I suspended the tretinoin treatment when the summer came. I was afraid to resume it, because I knew I would have to deal with the dry skin and the horrible under eye skin. So in an attempt to use a moisturizer that was rich and gentle to my skin, when it started to get dry and irritated, I started to use pure almond oil as moisturizer. I found it to be soothing, it helped to heal the skin faster (like a lot faster, overnight faster), and the most amazing thing: MY UNDER EYE AREA WASN'T DRY AT ALL! Like, absolutely no wrinkles, no sandpaper skin, no irritated nothing!

And here comes the best part: I wash my face at night, I put on a heavy coat of almond oil, I wait an hour, then I remove the excess oil with a tissue (if there is any excess oil, my skin drinks the oil like crazy) and I apply the tretinoin cream. The results? No excessive dryness, no irritated skin, no discomfort from the tretinoin watsoever, my skin LOVES the almond oil! And the tretinoin worked as usual, since I know what to expect from it because I have used it before, I can say 100% that I have the tingling, the flakiness and the unclogged pores that shows that the cream is working just fine... minus the irritation, the dry patches, the snadpaper under eye skin, etc.

Sooo since I couldn't find any post stating that you could use almond oil before the tretinoin and not lose any effectiveness, I wanted to share this with you. I also use coconut oil to remove make up, and I find it perfect for my new dry skin, because it doesn't burn or itch like other cleansers, and the coconut oil melts the make up so it makes it so easy to wipe it off.

Just so you know where I'm standing, I am using 0.025 tretinoin every night, and in a couple of nights I am jumping to the 0.05 every other night, until I can use that concentration every night. So far, the only ugly side effect I have is the flakiness, but since it's what makes me able to extract the deep set clogged pores, I'm not complaining much. Also, I want to say that I use the tretinoin under my eyes because I have such thin skin there, that I'm hoping the cream will thicken the dermis, and help a little bit.

I hope this was helpful!!
S.

free skin care · Sat May 09, 2015 6:00 am

thanks for posting and welcome to the forum! Smile

I agree, a good oil can make a huge difference and feels so soothing to the skin. For me avocado oil is my "go to".

free skin care · Sun May 10, 2015 7:56 am

My routine is similar to yours.

I believe that applying tretinoin on bare skin is the best way to reap the benefits of this active but it is quite drying.

Thus, months ago I started to apply emu oil and left it on my skin for 1-3 hours and then used Vaculift to do few minutes of massage. Afterwards, I cleanse it off with oil & apply tretinoin.

Voila, I feel great with this protocol.

Thu May 14, 2015 2:16 pm

I know, it's a wonderful feeling when you figure out something that works for you! Not having to deal with the awful sandpaper skin that tretinoin used to give me is a great improvement. I still have to deal with the flakiness, although I was just reading yesterday in paula's choice website that the flakiness is a symptom of irritation, not something that tretinoin should do.
Now I'm incorporating a vit c serum to the routine, and later I plan to use a BHA acid peel (starting low and working my way up). And somewhere in between, I'll resume my dermarrolling routine.

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