CLINICAL 1% Retinol Face Treatment with Peptides

I was introduced to this product by a friend who has similar skin/complexion. She looks fabulous so I decided to give it a whirl. Things you should know: 1. My beauty routine consisted of occasionally washing my face. And by occasional— I mean rarely. 2. I was always fortunate to have ‘good’ skin it didn’t break out or have big pores BUT it was super sensitive. 3. I’m lazy and will not do anything that requires a lot of work. 4. I’m 50. The pictures are in order of progress — blue top was day of first application —the next 3 are from the first 10 days and the last one is as of tonight. With all that said — I was instructed in detail about using the product. 1. Start slow — every other night 2. Keep it away from your eyes. 3. Use sunscreen and be very careful going out in the sun after a treatment. I started slow (2 applications following the instructions) and did not put it ‘near’ my eyes. I stop at my brow and just below my darks circles. It burned my skin off as if I was in Chernobyl when it exploded. It was AWFUL and it took 10 days to heal. (See pics) What I realized was with my sensitive skin I really should have put more time between applications. So once I healed — I then waited 6 days between applications as I had some dryness and a little sensitivity on my cheeks. I’ve been using the product now for a little over 3 weeks only had 4 applications and I’m already seeing marked improvement. My “11s” are much less obvious (see pics). My skin looks brighter and healthier. Lastly it’s a smooth as a baby’s rump — I suspect that has a lot to do with burning off the top 4 layers of skin, but I digress. This product is intense but effective. It will burn if you don’t ease into using it. Also — when they say don’t put it on your eyes — what they mean is anywhere near your eyes. Give a wide birth or else you risk having your face look like mine did. My eyelids were literally burned and I never touched them with the product that’s how strong it is. Now I keep it focused on my cheeks and a very tiny amount on the side of my eye for those dreaded crows feet. Other things of note: this is part of a very simple routine. Morning 1. Wash face 2. Use hyaluronic acid serum 3. Use Vitamin C serum Evening 1. Wash face 2. Use Retinol (slow at first - then work up to the right cadence for you) 3. Use moisturizer I use Beauty Counter products for the serums I use in the morning. I use Verse for my sunscreen and moisturizer. Obviously, PC’s retinol Cerave Moisturizing Face Wash I purchased everything except the Beauty Counter products through Amazon. I love all of the products and will continue using them. Hope this helps you make good decisions.

I absolutely love this retinol treatment! It feels lightweight and absorbs nicely without leaving my skin greasy. With consistent use, my skin looks smoother, brighter, and more refined, and I’ve noticed it really helps with the appearance of fine lines. If you’re new to retinol, I recommend starting slowly. I started by applying a small amount to my forehead about twice a week and gradually introduced it to other areas, such as my cheeks, once my skin became accustomed to it. This product has become an important part of my skincare routine, and I’m very happy with the results!

I docked a star off because maybe my expectations were set a little too high. Paula seems to hype her products up so much that I almost expected a miracle product. I have oily, sensitive, and acne prone skin. I was using this product mostly as a preventative measure as I'm only 23 and don't really have any visible wrinkles. But I do have a crease where my eyebrows are, I think I frown while I sleep haha, and it hasn't really done much for those. However, that's about the end of where my issues are with this product. Paula obviously is highly conscious about the ingredients and strength of ingredients in her skincare products. The retinol in this is really strong. I know the label says don't use with an AHA or BHA product but my face wash is a gentle AHA/BHA cleanser and I didn't want to switch cleansers just so I could use this product. I use this every other day and when I first started using it, the peeling was massive. I was peeling and flaking all around the jawline/chin area and even in between my eyebrows and on my cheeks a little too. Any and all acne scars would disappear within a few days and after I would exfoliate my face would be baby soft and squeaky clean. And whenever I use this even now, I still peel so it's obviously a strong product. Any blemishes or dark spots disappear using this, the difference is pretty subtle but I notice it. It is unscented but it actually kind of smells like fish oil, it's kind of rancid at first but you get used to it. It's bright yellow, kind of like Clinique's moisturizers, but with a thicker consistency. Overall, I'm not sure I would repurchase because the difference seems too subtle for the price, but because I'm using it as a preventative measure, I can't expect any huge differences. It definitely delivers on what it says it will do!

Ok, so to clear up some issues most often mentioned by reviewers. Yes, this product can be completely ineffective, but only if you don't properly clean your face. It literally can't work if there is a layer of something already there. It also doesn't work if you wash your face throughly, wait two hours, and then put it on. It needs to go on a freshly cleansed face. Wash, dry, apply, it's that simple. The second complaint I see is that it burns your under eye area, and this is also correct. The area under your eyes is more sensitive than the rest of your face, the skin is thinner, and chances are pretty good that you will have some type of a reaction. I know because I did too. I used this product three days in the row, and by the end of the third day, the area under my eyes was swollen and sensitive, the skin felt raw, and trying to cover it up with make-up resulted in pain and showing of approximately a dozen more wrinkles than I had in the first place. The day after that, small sections of the skin began to peel. The recover process in all took about three days. I still washed my face regularly, and applied a light layer of bacitracin mixed with A&D ointment under my eyes afterwards. Yesterday was the first day that the skin under my eyes didn't hurt, and it looks WONDERFUL. Some of the older skin had come off, the area under my eyes is actually even with the rest of my skin tone, and now barely has any wrinkles at all. The corners of my eyes where I had also applied the treatment and which went though the same painful process looks the way it did when I was twenty years old. It's absolutely incredible. I mean I've been watching these tiny crow's feet forming for a few years now, and dreading each new one, and they've literally disappeared in a space of a week. I'm now in process of doing another small section of my face, and I'm going to give my under-eye area another week to recover before I treat it again. Is it a painful process? Yes. Will you have a reaction? Probably. Is it worth it? 100% I'm thirty years old, and in the last year or so I've tried many different products. All the women in my family start showing wrinkles early in life (and gray early, but that's a whole other issue) and I've literally tried everything I can think of to slow that process. This is the first product I've tried where I'm actually seeing results, to the point where even my husband was surprised. I'm more than willing to put up with a little bit of discomfort to see real results, and this product definitely delivered.

Ordered this after reading reviews on top quality Retinol cream. It is very smooth, a small/pea sized amount can cover my whole face (not under eyes), I've had no reactions or sensititivy to this. I've been using it about a month now and my skin texture has improved. I layer it, starting with a thin layer of my night cream, then the Paula's Choice Retinol (one pump), and then another layer of night cream, and I do this every other night (alternating with another top quality Estriol product). It is now part of my routine and I will continue to re-order. For reference, I'm 63 and wanted top line skin care products... skin feels clean and smooth, love it!

This product is amazing., First you must know using retinol will cause side effects. Redness, dryness, peeling and burning is NOT uncommon. I have excess oily skin so this only affected me the first week. Note…I did not buy my bottle here.

Purchased this product in late Oct (on amazon but directly from Paula's choice) with high hopes based off of the ratings. I'm in my early 30's and looking to improve my skin regiment by adding a preventative. I have never in my life had acne issues, even as a teen. I'm not oily, if anything I have sensitive and dry skin. I've been using Ultra Repair Cream from sephora for years now for hydration (with great results) but was looking to add an anti aging cream to it. I started using this product as directed and got a huge cystic pimple on my chin. Assuming it was hormone related (as that's where most women get hormonal acne) I didn't blame the cream. The next use I got another cystic pimple on my jaw line. Ok, odd...? The next time I got one on the lining of my lip. I waited over 3 weeks before touching the stuff again, to give this cystic acne a chance to go away. The one on my lip is what took the longest to go away and required my doctor to look at it, and "pop" it, as it had created such a deep and hardened puss pocket that wouldn't go away without extraction. If walking around with a giant zip on my lip wasn't embarrassing enough, I then had to walk around with an extraction mark on my lip that looked like a herpes. Humiliated. I went online to start researching what could be causing this and read the retinol treatments can cause acne but if you stick it out, and keep using it, your skin will adjust and the breakouts will stop. I already spent the money and figured I should give it a try again. This time I started using just half the amount and mixed it with the hydrating moisturizer I've been using for years with no reaction. Again, broke out in a cystic zit on my cheek, next one was on my jaw line again, next one I had them in both eyebrows, and now (currently and as I speak) have one taking up a quarter of the left side of my nose. I know I read that I should stick it out for a month before I give up on a retinol cream but at this point I'm scared that I'm going to end up with a face full of painful cystic acne and scaring (two of them have left dark circles that wont go away and I'm praying aren't going to be scars.) I would suggest people who want to try this get a very small amount first. That way you're not stuck with a cream that ends up making your skin worse than it was before. Acne has never ever ever been an issue for me. Large pores and blackheads, sure, but not acne. This may work wonders for some people, but it's pretty clear I'm not one of them. This was my very first time trying a retinol cream and I don't know if my reaction was because of this particular formula or if my skin simply cannot handle retinol in general.

Make sure you are prepared for this treatment with plenty of hydrating products - serums, moisturizers and oils. My coconut oil saved me through this whole process! Choice coconut oil - Nutiva - it's right here on amazon so add it to your cart after adding this retinol! It has 50% lauric acid in it and is non gmo, organic, cold pressed, non-comedegenic and smells absolutely divine! I cannot recommend this coconut oil enough!!! My skin would have been a complete mess without it and that's why I wanted to open up my review with it. It was THAT important for me! This is my first high concentrated retinol and this stuff is intense. My skin is a little on the sensitive side so maybe that was the reason for my skin freaking out a little bit more than usual. It's a good thing they offer a small trial size for you to get a feel for it so you're not stuck with a full size that you won't be using in case it's not for you. My experience with this, I used it twice in a week as instructed to get your skin acclimated to it. A few days later I started seeing a little bit of peeling and then a few more days in came the rest: some redness, warm feeling and tightness. A little bit of itchiness due to the skin shedding but I understand this is normal especially if it's your first retinol peel. I must admit I was pretty freaked out. I was sensitive to cleansing so I stuck to a tepid/cool rinse and then added hydrating serums (Skinmedica hydrating complex), moisturizers (Skinmedica ceramide treatment) and globbed on coconut oil to lock it all in - this part felt the best! For a few days whenever I cleansed I would get a little bit red but then it would calm down after applying all of my products and about 30 minutes passed. If this is your first higher concentration of retinol keep it as far from your under eye area as possible! Your skin will get very tight once it starts kicking in and it does kinda pull around the orbital bone and looks like more wrinkles which can be utterly traumatizing! So protect the area with an eye cream and I'm serious when I say I globbed on the coconut oil - especially in this area where the under eye skin connects to the cheek skin. I cannot stress enough that stuff saved me through this whole process! When things start to look and feel too tight just keep on slopping it on and on and on! Gently massage it into areas that are reacting a little more than others. After everything my skin actually does appear a little more plumped. I don't have a lot of wrinkles so the state of those seem the same but that differs from person to person. I got this trial size to ultimately test the product with my skin type, not to expect miracle results from one use. Although if I got them that would have been a pleasant surprise! lol :P I'm glad I had off from work when all of this was happening because this was definitely not convenient! I'm personally not going to continue with this retinol, at least for now because I think a lesser concentration would be better to get acclimated to first. Didn't think it would be too bad because it's retinol not retin-a but the reaction I got seemed more like a retin-a for me. I'm a week in and the redness and sensitivity are gone. The peeling is in it's final stages. As far as results go I can actually see some subtle evening of the skin but I definitely need something gentler! However, I will say that the positive reviews and happy customers of this product do speak for themselves as many have had great results which was the inspiration behind my purchase of this product. Maybe further down the line I'll add it to my retinol routine but for now it's just a little much! I rate this at 3 stars because even though it did what you'd expect retinol to do and my skin really didn't agree with the concentration the subtle results were nice but not really worth the whole ordeal for me.

The price is too high

Good Product, but only last a couple of days.

استخدميه يوم بعد يوم يعطي نضارة

I am 52 and people regularly comment on how beautiful my skin is. This was not the case when I was younger and only started to happen after using Paula's Choice products from age 46. I am so glad I found this product line. Wrinkles are minimized, and my skin glows and looks radiantly younger. Blemishes are no longer an issue and old scars are clearer and almost gone. The Retinol has made another significant difference in the healing of old scars from large pores and acne. I no longer worry about blemishes as soon as they begin I treat them with a strong BHA product and they are gone by morning. The Retinol can be strong so I take a break for a day or two until skin feels better than start again. My skin is building up and feels less and less sensitive to the Retinol. I love this product and won't be without it. It's expensive for me but it does last a good long time.

Muy bueno, a pesar de ser pequeño, dura bastantes meses.