when using retinol, try finding a product with a lower retinol concentration first, to get your skin used to it. if you use too high of a concentration at the beginning, you may overwhelm your skin and experience redness and itching. it may even peel. i suggest using the ordinary's lower concentration retinol. it's how i began using. also use moisturizers along with your retinol. anything with hyaluronic acid is great. don't mix it with other products while you're letting your skin get used to it. start off with twice a month and if you see that your skin isn't breaking out or having a bad reaction to it, you can move up to once a week. iirc, retinol isn't to be used everyday so once a week should be good.