The Ordinary - Skinholygrail review for Retinol 0.5% in Squalane

People that are into skincare probably heard about retinol countless times. It's an ingredient that has more than 70 years of established studies showing it has value for skin on several fronts: It’s a skin-restoring, wrinkle-smoothing, firming and pore-refining ingredient, allowing it to improve a variety of skin concerns, most related to visible signs of aging and acne.  . If you think about adding this hero of an ingredient to your routine, you'll probably have to research a little bit before doing so, the main points being 1. Start at the lower percentage of retinol first, I would recommend 0.2%.  2. If you don't religiously wear sunscreen every day, FORGET it, not only is it useless in the long run, you can also seriously damage your skin if you go out in the sun without sunscreen while on retinol. .  Talking about the product itself, it was great! This being 0.5% did require careful acclimatisation, I only used it once a week for a month initially as it purged my skin a little and made my skin dryer 3-4 days after the application. Eventually, all those side effects stopped, and after some time I was less prone to my usual breakouts that I would get around my period, although it didn't "cure" my acne (but nothing will) it definitely decreased number of breakouts I was experiencing overall and the severity of them. The biggest difference I saw was in my hyperpigmentation, it helped like no other product. I had years of PIH left from my awful acne but this has cleared the majority of it (only missing real dark marks) + preventing new PIH from appearing. I definitely recommend this product to someone who's experiencing active breakouts.  . Would I repurchase? Possibly after trying what else is there!