Can I use Betaine Salicylate and Retinyl Palmitate together?
Piel's routine check says: Caution
Retinoids and exfoliating acids together can irritate — redness, flaking or stinging. Use them on alternate nights. This applies when applied at the same time. One of the two usually appears only in trace amounts, so Piel lowers this pair one level: a heads-up rather than a warning.
The clash is about surface turnover: an exfoliating acid loosens the outer layer of dead cells, and a retinoid speeds up how fast new ones arrive. In the same layer at the same time the two add up, and the barrier ends up doing too much at once.
Alternate nights is the usual way around it — the acid one evening, the retinoid the next, each on clean dry skin and with nothing else new in the routine that week.
If skin is already red, tight or flaking, stop both until it feels normal again and bring one back before the other. Neither ingredient is the problem on its own; the timing is.
Betaine Salicylate belongs to Piel's family of exfoliating acids; Retinyl Palmitate to retinoids.
About Betaine Salicylate
CosIng classes Betaine Salicylate as:
- antimicrobial
- keratolytic
Read the Betaine Salicylate page
About Retinyl Palmitate
CosIng classes Retinyl Palmitate as:
- skin conditioning (other)
A vitamin A ester that skin converts to retinol. It is the mildest of the common vitamin A forms and appears in products formulated for people who find retinol uncomfortable.
Read the Retinyl Palmitate page
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