#218

I don’t use adapalene daily yet but I used it daily for the past 3-4 days, no significant redness or drying of skin. Skin feels warm though. Going to take tonight off most likely.

Or did you mean isotretinoin? I’d try it at the lowest possible dose maybe once a week then maybe go 2x a week and so on. I’d be quite cautious with it.

#219

So it’s fancy microneedling?

#220

I was saying that I should try using adapalene only on my neck. Even after years of using tretinoin, the skin on my neck still seems sensitive in colder months. I sometimes get redness in the neck creases, so maybe adapalene would be gentler there. On my face, I have no issues at all even around my eyes and I use it daily on my eyelids too.

#221

I’m not game enough to do eyelids but that is an area I want to work on. Dry eyes?

Yea go ahead and do the neck why not. If I ever have any left on my hands I put it on my neck.

#222

I’d steer well clear of oral. So I take it you’ve. Given up on my miracle cleanser? :wink:

#223

No issues around my eyes at all. I did get some redness in the corners during the first couple of months, but now I barely notice that I’m even using tretinoin on my face.

May I ask why you’d steer clear? I’ve been steering clear too even though my Accutane prescription is filled and sitting in my drawer. Still rocking the oily skin life :sweat_smile:

Haha, definitely not! It’s been a total game changer. My cleaning lady isn’t a fan, but my skin absolutely is. The grape seed oil + colloidal oat mix has made such a difference.

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#224

Nice! So glad to hear it. I mean I had customers obsesssed with that product. Mainly stopped making it due to the messy process (felt like your cleaning lady) and sometimes it happened that I didn’t screw the lid of my bottles tight enough and the customers got a soupy mess in the mail :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:. Those were good times, circa 2017!

I’d steer clear of Accutane because it can cause birth defects. Now if I recall you’re gay with a husband, so not a “birthing person,” but if that’s what it does to women, it can’t be doing much good to men internally. It’s basically a super high dose of vitamin A — and super doses of vitamin A supplementation are inversely correlated with longevity. QED

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#225

We are talking microdoses here though. I wonder how that would work?

#226

I don’t think it would work at all. You might as well be taking a normal vit A supplement (retinyl palmitate) then. The way Accutane works is, as with everything, the dose making the poison as well as causing the desired effect. You need to take a lot of something orally for enough of its effect to be felt on the skin, the most peripheral part of the organism — its outer edge, if you will. Accutane is highly effective as a short term treatment to bring out of control acne under control. It’s not meant to be used the way some folks are considering to on this thread, but to each his own. I find it particularly useless when you can very safely use topical tretinoin.

#227

GPT5:

1. Structural relationship between Vitamin A and Isotretinoin

  • Vitamin A (retinol) is the parent compound. It has a β-ionone ring connected to a polyunsaturated side chain ending in an alcohol group.
  • Isotretinoin (13-cis retinoic acid) is a synthetic derivative of Vitamin A. It is a retinoid, meaning it shares the retinoid backbone but differs in geometry: isotretinoin is the 13-cis isomer of all-trans retinoic acid (tretinoin).
  • In other words, isotretinoin is not structurally identical to vitamin A, but they are in the same family. Isotretinoin is an oxidized and geometrically modified form of vitamin A.

So: same family, not the same molecule.

2. Microdosed isotretinoin as an anti-aging alternative

  • Topical tretinoin and adapalene are well-studied for skin aging. They act locally to:
    • Increase collagen production
    • Promote epidermal turnover
    • Reduce fine wrinkles and hyperpigmentation
  • Oral isotretinoin, even at low doses, acts systemically. Evidence shows:
    • It reduces sebaceous gland activity and oil production.
    • It can improve photoaging in some small studies, but the data is limited compared to topical tretinoin.
    • Side effects (even at “microdoses”) include dry skin, mucosal dryness, potential liver strain, lipid changes, and teratogenicity.

Pros

  • Could improve skin texture and oiliness.
  • May help with acne and potentially reduce some photoaging signs indirectly.

Cons

  • Much less studied for anti-aging compared to topical retinoids.
  • Risks of systemic side effects even at microdoses.
  • Lack of long-term safety data when used chronically for purely cosmetic anti-aging.

Bottom line

  • No, vitamin A and isotretinoin are not the same compound, but isotretinoin is a retinoid derivative of vitamin A.
  • Microdosing isotretinoin is not considered a safe or evidence-based substitute for topical tretinoin or adapalene in anti-aging.
  • If your goal is anti-aging skin effects, topical retinoids remain the gold standard. Oral isotretinoin is best reserved for specific medical indications like severe or resistant acne, not as a first-line anti-aging strategy.

Looks like I’ll skip isotretinoin then.

2 Likes
#228

Yep:

“ * Side effects (even at “microdoses”) include dry skin, mucosal dryness, potential liver strain, lipid changes, and teratogenicity.”

Also when I said you might as well microdose Vit A (had retinyl palmitate in mind, actually), I meant it would be equally useless. Vit A is a much less potent version of tretinoin / Accutane, so depending on what you mean by “micro”, if the dose be small enough, it probably becomes equivalent to the systemic effect of plain Vit A, which we know to not be effective for skin purposes

I wasn’t suggesting you would want to supplement with Vit A, merely mentioned that as an illustration of how useless a micro enough dose to moot systemic problems would be. You’d need a ton of oral Vit A to come close to an equivalency with Accutane, and we should all know the dangers of hyper Vit A supplementation.

#229

So you’re saying you put tretinoin on eye bag area under eye with no issue? Did it improve the skin age appearance?

#230

Some people will get dry eyes from retinoids around the eyes. For me, retinoids mostly improved the skin texture, making it smoother and brighter. They can help reduce fine lines too. But deeper wrinkles, nothing topical is going to address that. I don’t think retinoids will help much with dark circles either, if that’s what you mean by “eye bags” haha

3 Likes
#231

I’ve been using 0.1% tret on and around my eyelids with no problems other than occasional dryness and peeling. It works in firming up the eyelid skin, which in my case is the canary in the mine and the first bit of facial skin to want to show some crepeness. But not everyone is so tolerant of tret. To some people it can mess up with their eye glands so I’d tread very cautiously.

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#232

I have been using it since my mid-thirties, and some 15 years later, my skin around the eyes is looking more or less unchanged.

But be cautious, the skin around the eyes is delicate, and I worked on being able to use it daily over a few months. And my facial skin is generally quite robust.

1 Like
#233

It did make the skin around my eyes a bit inflamed and swollen. I would use a lower strength adapalene next time.