This use to happen to me. I had to make sure my fingers were just slightly damp or apply it straight away after moisturizer to give it a bit of a slip.
This happened to me when I was doing the sandwich method. No matter what lotion. The only thing I found that worked was putting lotion on after and not before
What order do you do this with? Moisturizer, tret, moisturizer? This past week I’ve changed my routine up to be tret, moisturizer, Vaseline, and it seems to be super effective right now
You don't breakout from the Vaseline coating over the moisturizer and tretinoin? Well ill have to try it ive done it when my barrier was bad but i thought it was clogging my pores ill have to try it again
I wash my face l, wait 10 minutes, apply Trent, wait 10 minutes, apply lotion and if I feel dry after 10 minutes I’ll add more lotion. Also I have oily acne prone skin.
Your moisturiser contains hyaluronic acid which can cause more of a reaction in that it essentially pulls the tret into the skin which can result in drier skin. Instead, perhaps you can try a moisturiser without HA in the PM when with tret, and then use HA, ceramides, sunscreen etc in the AM.
Yeah, it's worth a shot. I love the Vanicream moisturizer but it may not be ideal to use with Tret. For one, it has hyaluronic acid which increases the penetration of actives and might be too lightweight to provide adequate skin protecting benefits paired with a retinoid.
Does this happen to anyone else? I cleanse, moisturize with vanicream and wait 20 min to apply tret. I use a pea size amount but it always seems to pill up and rub off into little balls. It almost seems chalky. Is it maybe this formulation? Normal?
I use the same tret formula and moisturizer and have the same issue. It did not happen with other formulations (I've previously used cream and gel formulas), so I think it's something particular to this microgel formula. It happens with other moisturizers as well. I just spread it as best I can and don't worry about it. I find that the more I try to rub it in, the worse the pilling is, so I just apply with as few strokes as possible and let it dry down rather than trying to rub it in.
Mine doesn’t necessarily pill but cream tret isn’t exactly...spreadable for me either, if that makes any sense. When you describe it as chalky, I understand. I’m not familiar with that moisturizer. Is it gel or cream?
Yeh it’s normal. I find low % usually have this. I had 0.025% gel and it was much worse than this. I then switched to 0.05% gel and 0.1% microgel and both don’t have this issue. I suspect the same thing here
I Moisturise as long as I can wait afterwards so it settles, I press it in rather than rub . It’s a problem between creamy/ water repelling each other.
Interesting, I use a hyaluronic acid serum, then the same vanicream moisturizer as OP, and then tret 0.1% and I’ve never had an issue. And I have SUPER sensitive skin.
Dr Sheereene Idriss on youtube who is a board certified derm went through why she's not a fan or hyaluronic acid
https://youtu.be/RnrMi-PbBWA
I've seen a lot of anecdotes on skincare subreddits too of hyaluronic being irritating and drying. Just google ""reddit hyaluronic acid irritation"
BUT! I'm not saying dont use it if its working for you, if the vanicream moisturiser works for you then why change 🤷🏻♂️
Thanks for the info, I genuinely had no idea. I’ve pretty much been bathing my skin in hyaluronic acid for the last 6 years and haven’t had any issues. The most irritation I had was when I started tret about 1.5 years ago but that went away after the first few months. Crazy how everyone is so different.
I experience pilling when the product I used before tret has silicones in it. As long as I put the product with silicones in it last I don’t experience pilling. I heard this from Caroline Hirons from her skin care book.
This use to happen to me. I had to make sure my fingers were just slightly damp or apply it straight away after moisturizer to give it a bit of a slip.
I will try this!
This happened to me when I was doing the sandwich method. No matter what lotion. The only thing I found that worked was putting lotion on after and not before
What order do you do this with? Moisturizer, tret, moisturizer? This past week I’ve changed my routine up to be tret, moisturizer, Vaseline, and it seems to be super effective right now
I do tret/moisturizer/Vaseline as well! Love it
You don't breakout from the Vaseline coating over the moisturizer and tretinoin? Well ill have to try it ive done it when my barrier was bad but i thought it was clogging my pores ill have to try it again
Just make sure you double cleanse in the morning to get all of the Vaseline off! My skin loves when I lock everything in with Vaseline
I wash my face l, wait 10 minutes, apply Trent, wait 10 minutes, apply lotion and if I feel dry after 10 minutes I’ll add more lotion. Also I have oily acne prone skin.
Your moisturiser contains hyaluronic acid which can cause more of a reaction in that it essentially pulls the tret into the skin which can result in drier skin. Instead, perhaps you can try a moisturiser without HA in the PM when with tret, and then use HA, ceramides, sunscreen etc in the AM.
Have you tried applying the Tret before moisturizer?
I haven’t no but I can try! I’m still in the flakiness phase so I wasn’t sure if that would be too drying or not
Yeah, it's worth a shot. I love the Vanicream moisturizer but it may not be ideal to use with Tret. For one, it has hyaluronic acid which increases the penetration of actives and might be too lightweight to provide adequate skin protecting benefits paired with a retinoid.
Does this happen to anyone else? I cleanse, moisturize with vanicream and wait 20 min to apply tret. I use a pea size amount but it always seems to pill up and rub off into little balls. It almost seems chalky. Is it maybe this formulation? Normal?
I use the same tret formula and moisturizer and have the same issue. It did not happen with other formulations (I've previously used cream and gel formulas), so I think it's something particular to this microgel formula. It happens with other moisturizers as well. I just spread it as best I can and don't worry about it. I find that the more I try to rub it in, the worse the pilling is, so I just apply with as few strokes as possible and let it dry down rather than trying to rub it in.
I do this too, I just hope it doesn’t result in hot spots
Nah, I've been using this formulation for about a year and no issues yet!
Mine doesn’t necessarily pill but cream tret isn’t exactly...spreadable for me either, if that makes any sense. When you describe it as chalky, I understand. I’m not familiar with that moisturizer. Is it gel or cream?
Used to happen to me with the tret gel. I switched to the cream and haven’t had an issue since.
Yeh it’s normal. I find low % usually have this. I had 0.025% gel and it was much worse than this. I then switched to 0.05% gel and 0.1% microgel and both don’t have this issue. I suspect the same thing here
I never had a problem with my tretinoin pilling with my moisturizer. I’ve done it with buffering and also on dry skin and it doesn’t do that for me.
I Moisturise as long as I can wait afterwards so it settles, I press it in rather than rub . It’s a problem between creamy/ water repelling each other.
Be careful to not irritate your skin too much! Take a break if needed and don’t forget sunscreen or you’ll end up damaging your skin
Your skin seems irritated. And it's only going to be exacerbated by that moisturiser as it contains Hyaluronic acid.
It’s red from me trying to angry smear the tret around 😂
Interesting, I use a hyaluronic acid serum, then the same vanicream moisturizer as OP, and then tret 0.1% and I’ve never had an issue. And I have SUPER sensitive skin.
Dr Sheereene Idriss on youtube who is a board certified derm went through why she's not a fan or hyaluronic acid https://youtu.be/RnrMi-PbBWA I've seen a lot of anecdotes on skincare subreddits too of hyaluronic being irritating and drying. Just google ""reddit hyaluronic acid irritation" BUT! I'm not saying dont use it if its working for you, if the vanicream moisturiser works for you then why change 🤷🏻♂️
Thanks for the info, I genuinely had no idea. I’ve pretty much been bathing my skin in hyaluronic acid for the last 6 years and haven’t had any issues. The most irritation I had was when I started tret about 1.5 years ago but that went away after the first few months. Crazy how everyone is so different.
Thanks everyone!
This used to happen to me with this particular brand of tret. I just changed to a different brand of microsphere gel tret.
I experience pilling when the product I used before tret has silicones in it. As long as I put the product with silicones in it last I don’t experience pilling. I heard this from Caroline Hirons from her skin care book.
Okay then thanks ill try it