Can I use glycolic acid with retin-a?
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free skin care · Tue Jun 29, 2010 2:03 pm

I am using micro retin-a at the moment, and not really seeing any irritation apart from dryness around the mouth. Can I use a glycolic acid peel or microdermabrasion (epidermx), or avon peel pads which have glycolic acid in them every other night as I was doing before?

Would appreciate some advice, Im really scared of messing my skin up, esp in summer!

free skin care · Tue Jun 29, 2010 2:34 pm

You can use them together, but if you are worried, I would definitely not use them on the same night at least to start with. I would also only use the glycolic once a week to start with to see how your skin does with both of them.

free skin care · Tue Jun 29, 2010 3:35 pm

thanks! I was planning on using it every other night when im not using retina, as I use the retin-a every other night too

will try it tonight and see how my skin fares Shock

free skin care · Tue Jun 29, 2010 4:32 pm

Good luck, mowgli. Just take it nice and slow and you should be fine!

free skin care · Wed Jun 30, 2010 6:42 pm

You definitely need to keep them at least 12 hours apart!

I am going to be adding retinol back into my treatment regimen, and I think I will go with every other night as well.

free skin care · Thu Jul 01, 2010 3:47 am

thanks all - my skin is fine, been a week and a half since i started micro retina, and the glycolic pads dnt seem to irritate, so all is fine!

I did read this on the leslie baumanns skin guru blog, in case anyone was wondering about using them at the same time!

•4. Do not mix glycolic or salicylic acid with hydroquinone, retinol or vitamin C. Acid breaks down these ingredients and renders them useless.

free skin care · Thu Jul 01, 2010 4:47 am

mowgli wrote:

thanks all - my skin is fine, been a week and a half since i started micro retina, and the glycolic pads dnt seem to irritate, so all is fine!

I did read this on the leslie baumanns skin guru blog, in case anyone was wondering about using them at the same time!

•4. Do not mix glycolic or salicylic acid with hydroquinone, retinol or vitamin C. Acid breaks down these ingredients and renders them useless.

I don't believe that one, but that is just my opinion. Murad uses C and glycolic acid, Obagi uses hydroquinone, C, retinoid, and glycolic acid. Too many lines use the combination for me to totally buy that. Now, maybe with a "retinol" the weaker form of A it may, but with a "retinoid" it will actually help the retinoid penetrate deeper. All of this is of course just my 2 cents!

free skin care · Thu Jul 01, 2010 5:44 am

im no expert on this, only just looking into this myself, but I think the point was not to mix these ingrdients if they are separate products. She mentioned that it was ok to use if they had been formulated together, giving the example of tri-luma, which has HQ and something else - I'm not sure how these ingredients are stabilised against each other though..

I generally only use one of these at a time anyway, so no issue for me at the moment!

Btw, my skin is looking really good, can retin-a have this effect in 10 days already?? Will continue with this cycle of retin-a and glycolic peel pads

free skin care · Thu Jul 01, 2010 7:44 am

mowgli wrote:

Btw, my skin is looking really good, can retin-a have this effect in 10 days already??

Some times it can take a few weeks for irritation or purging to set in. It may not happen for you but just know incase it does.

free skin care · Sat Jul 03, 2010 2:37 pm

rileygirl wrote:

mowgli wrote:

thanks all - my skin is fine, been a week and a half since i started micro retina, and the glycolic pads dnt seem to irritate, so all is fine!

I did read this on the leslie baumanns skin guru blog, in case anyone was wondering about using them at the same time!

•4. Do not mix glycolic or salicylic acid with hydroquinone, retinol or vitamin C. Acid breaks down these ingredients and renders them useless.

I don't believe that one, but that is just my opinion. Murad uses C and glycolic acid, Obagi uses hydroquinone, C, retinoid, and glycolic acid. Too many lines use the combination for me to totally buy that. Now, maybe with a "retinol" the weaker form of A it may, but with a "retinoid" it will actually help the retinoid penetrate deeper. All of this is of course just my 2 cents!

Products with both are usually formulated much differently if they are combined, for a variety of reasons. However, I did find this quote to be a bit contrary to what what Dr. B said:

Quote:

Cosmeceutical Agents: A Comprehensive Review
of the Literature
Thomas C. Tsai, BS and Basil M. Hantash
Program for Regenerative Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA.

GA and retinaldehyde (RAL) have distinct and complementary activities in skin care, but when utilized together cause increased irritation. However, when formulated together as RALGA, increased skin delivery of RA into the skin is achieved without the typical side effects commonly associated with high concentrations of topical RA.[45]

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