I’ve Been Doubling Up on Retinoids — and My Skin Has Never Looked Better

I’ve been doubling up on retinoids for over four months, and though conventional wisdom dictates this would lead my skin down a path of ruin — redness, scaling, flakiness, and peeling — it has never looked better. It’s glowier than usual, and I’ve had fewer breakouts. The compliments from strangers have been flowing in quite regularly too.

For whatever it’s worth, I never planned to double-dip on retinoids. I’ve been using prescription tretinoin off and on since my teens, and I’ve been more committed for the past decade. I usually apply a hydrating, antioxidant serum first. I find this helps keep my skin moisturized, especially during the winter months. So, in mid-September, I grabbed Muri Lelu Grass Nuit Retinoid Treatment, one of the many serums in a (literal) queue in my medicine cabinet, as the first step of this routine. Yes, it has “retinoid” in its name. No, I didn’t notice or take that into consideration. Muri Lelu is known for being an excellent, luxurious, gentle, full-flower cannabis line. (I’ve used its other serum and an oil for years.) So, for me, that was the headline: “Cannabis. An antioxidant. This serum’s next up to test. Let’s go.” And, if I’m being honest, I’ve developed a cavalier attitude after testing hundreds (thousands?) of products-of-the-year as an editor. If something works, then I start paying attention.

And in mid-December, I noticed my skin looked good. I have acne-prone skin, so for me “good” means a smoother texture, glowy without being oily, less irritation, and, most important, fewer breakouts. Every few weeks, I usually get some sort of bad pimple, typically a deep nodule — but examining my face in the mirror that night, I realized I hadn’t had to triage and treat a pimple in a long while. I couldn’t remember the last time, actually. Then, I remembered Muri Lelu. It’s the only thing I’d changed in my routine.

When I realized the serum was working, I went into investigation mode. I checked the ingredient list on Grass Nuit: hyaluronic acid, aloe vera, niacinamide, and full-flower sativa. That’s hydration, anti-inflammatories, and antioxidants. All that helped explain why I wasn’t getting irritated or dry. And then there was the retinoid: granactive retinoid one percent. Aha, I’d heard of this one before. It was popularized as the main active in the Ordinary’s retinoid serum, a serum folks swear by. When you apply an OTC retinol, enzymes in your skin convert it, over time, to a bioactive chemical that your skin can use. (Prescription tretinoin, on the other hand, starts working immediately.) This slowdown is what makes retinols gentler than prescription versions — but also less effective. Granactive retinoid, though, is touted as occupying a sweet spot: It’s immediately available to your skin, so it’s more effective than your average retinol (still not as much as a prescription) but also gentle. That all seemed to be borne out with my experience.

But because doubling up is, in theory at least, so off the rails, I needed to get a professional’s opinion about what was going on. I called up my friend and dermatologist Dr. Michelle Henry. She said a few things were likely happening with me. First, I’m a long-long-time retinoid user, so my skin is truly “retinized,” or game for retinoids, no irritation. Second, my tretinoin strength at .05 percent is in the mid-range (prescriptions come in six strengths, from 0.01 percent to 0.1 percent). After all these years, I could probably go up a notch or even max out at 0.1 percent, but that’s where Grass Nuit comes in. Henry described the formula’s retinoid as a potential “booster.” I’d effectively taken my retinoid treatment up a teeny bit in strength by layering in Grass Nuit.

For the right person — someone who’s got oily skin like mine and is used to retinoids — an OTC retinol layer could step their treatment up to an intermediate level between available prescription strengths. This was all theoretical; we were just chatting. But I think the interesting takeaway here is, if you’ve been on a retinoid for a while and are thinking about going to the next level, you could try a serum that has a teeny bit of retinol as a transition. Talk to your doctor about it first. And I’m sure I’ll hear complaints from plenty of them about this post (but y’all know where to find me). But there’s no denying the fact that my skin not only looks good but it isn’t winter dry and chafe-y like it usually is in February. Plus, now, after rolling with Grass Nuit training wheels for the past four months, I am ready for a big-girl transition: the next tretinoin strength. That’s a step I had, for many years out of fear of irritation, been too scared to take.

Are there other products that you want our intrepid team of beauty writers to test, or trends that you want them to fact-check? Send us an email at strategistbeautybrief@nymag.com with your thoughts and questions.