I did it!! 6 Months of Adapalene (acne-prone skin) 

This was really helpful! Thanks!

Adapalene is the best retinoid Its strong yet totally tolerable! while tretinoin gave me dry, flaky, tight, dull skin from irritation Adapalene when used right, will make you glow and mattify your skin in a good way...

Thank you for your review and especially the demo😊👍🏽

As a tenured differin user this review totally resonates with me! I had a very similar experience. I actually had combo to oily skin previous to starting differin but I now feel it's more combo to dry which I have learned the hard way with products esp in the northern winters! And I definitely sympathize with the purging. But as you said I'm soo glad I had faith and stuck it out. Just the other day I was complimented on how good my skin was and when I thought about it, I actually feel like differin has completely changed the severity of my acne, along with eliminating fragrance. A little while ago I attempted moving away from it and using other actives but it was just not enough. Idk if I will need it for the rest of my life but even so it would be so worth it. I told my bf I should invest in the differin stock 🤣

YAY 6 MONTHS ADAPALENE ANNIVERSARY!!! I am on about a year and three months if i remember correctly. Retinoids the best skincare ingredient point blank period, especially for us dry acne prone folks!!!!! Im glad you started layering it in between moisturizers- love that technique for me! G=What a wonderful video, just grinning from ear to ear hearing your experiences!! Speaking of spray toners- I think if you liked the cream skin mist you will LOVE the aestura ato mist!!! Aestura is a brand like illiyoon that focuses on pseudoceramides and includes a super large concentration- my holy grail barrier products! their mist is like the cream skin mist but even more soothing and repairing!

Hello, Alice Soooo Happy to learn your having success with Adapalene, That's excellent. Enjoy your weekend also.

Tatcha rice wash is my favorite! Love that it's gentle.

This is a great video for me. I just started adapalene last week. Only used it once and I felt that sensitivity you mentioned. So I decided to start with once a week and see how my skin does. I picked up some Cicaplast and tonight is actually my once a week night. I absolutely love that Tatcha cleanser too!

Thank you so much for giving us the timeline. I just started Retinol this week and going through the same “maybe I should use more🙄”. Also needed advice on what kind of moisturizer to put over my Retinol.

this video has a lot of rewatch potential for me. super helpful.

Your skin is flawless

My adapalene journey was not easy but 100% worth it. I don't have acne but I have noticed my complexion is so clear and bright.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C Clarke.

Love your video 🎉 ❤ xx

Yeeessss so many samely things thinking back to my first six months using differin. Including the wiping! I honestly get so much relaxation watching videos of your skin care routine because I love watching people who like skincare routines as much as I do lol.

Hello! Very happy to learn it is going so well with Adapalene! I cannot get La Roche Poche here, but I am having success using Differin as I am up to every 2nd day and all is going well. :) Have a wonderful weekend too!

So excited to hear your thoughts! I am super happy, in general, with my adapalene progress. I see such a difference compared to otc retinols, and it's actually super affordable (especially when you have a ton of CVS discounts!!) I can see a marked improvement in my skin in general. The glass shards scars I have have definitely improved. If I'm honest with myself, my skin is pretty darn smooth for someone who had 64cm of scars on my face, and nurses picking out glass for months! And it is helping with anti aging!! Granted I use A LOT of various actives and products depending on my skin's mood, but yeah. It's worthwhile. And I love being able to focus more on K beauty type products and ingredients, and feeling like I am seeing far more results than pre-adapalene. My forehead lines are shallower, and the hereditary lines around my mouth have reduced by a good half at least. Using a thicker, moisturizing serum as my bottom slice of bread in my adapalene sandwich is just working so well. I use the adap every other night, but I'm going to use it more often and find out what happens... 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻 I can always back off again... Doing my skincare while watching your videos caps off my skin care joy as much as the glass of wine 🍷 I find necessary lol You rock!! Thank you for always being honest for us!! ❤️

I am noticing issues with my skin now, gosh I thought acne days were over but here I am 40 and have acne so I believe I am going to look into ACNEFREE Adapalene so THANK YOU for posting this video.

on 2 months of adapalene now. the purging was instant, but I really love it, and want to continue with it indefinitely.

I'm a "sensitive to adapalene" person as well. Specifically, I tried differin and reacted to it: red, inflamed, miserable. However, I can use Rx tretintoin .025 (in the cream base) with no issues at all. I tried the encapsulated .04 gel but the capsules feel awful and I do get more dryness. The formulation and vehicle matter so much. I'm glad you found a way to make that retinoid work for you.

SO funny you said that about LED putting you in the sleep zone. So when I use mine, I wake up, reach over to my nightstand to pull it out of the basket, strap it on my face and fall back to sleep for the 10 min treatment. 😂 it’s so comforting!

nice review...thank you

I too find doing moisturizer and then waiting to apply tretinoin helps so much. I usually wait about 90 min. When I put a lower strength on right after I was getting stinging burning and next day peeling. Skin felt taut. With the waiting it is much more comfortable

Alice have you tried Soo Good toner pads? When my skin turns red and irritated, this pad is a serious life saver!

Hallo, thank you. Very informative and I think I can have my son try this. He has oily skin though. Thank you 💜

11:48 im telling you Alice, you have to try the bepanthen diper rash cream for your lips, i swear it makes your lips look so glossy, its white on first application but it melts in your lips. And after two months of using it i started to see the insides of my lips turn brighter, more pink, but you wouldn’t have to use it for two months to see good results , one application and it lasts you all day and all night

I tried retin-a for a couple of years. I thought I had adjusted, yet whenever I was in a place with really good lighting, I always noticed that I had flakey skin. So bye-bye retin-a. Thanks to your video, I decided to give the La Roche Posay Adapalene a try--should arrive tomorrow. Thanks Alice and thanks for the sandwiching tip.

omg adapalene changed my LIFE. my skin finally cleared up, but boy are winters difficult for dryness now.

Try and build it up to 3×Week , and you can use it AM too . I concentrate on having a great barrier first then try Adapalene . Xx

I really like Dr. Sam’s 13 dot technique for applying retinoids: 3 dots each on the forehead and cheeks, and 2 dots on the nose and chin. She demos this on her RU-vid. Bonus product application tip: look up Caroline Hiron’s Therapist Hands. I use this method for thin products like toners and facial oils.

Thanks for the vid! After watching your content I've realized that I have negative sensitive skin 😂 I use adapalene every night! I never really had any sensitivity and minor purging so I wondered if the one I'm using is less potent somehow? I use the Acne Free .01 adapalene from Walmart, it's only $10 and i figured if the ingredient is the same, I don't need to splurge on something else. Is that true or am I getting a worse product?

When you put the lip balm on after, I was thinking “is she not worried about getting the adapalene on her lips if there was still some on her fingers?” 😂 & then u said that lololol

So glad to hear I'm not the only one who feels sensitive to things since starting retinoid. Even a tissue to blot eyes drops away or wipe corners of mouth with washcloth after brushing feels scratchy & will sting, lack of better word for several minutes after. I used adapalene for 7 mo most nights no problem then agency tretinoin. Started.09 then.012 .017.035 just started.05 now can't use nightly only 4 x a week . I have a normal to dry sensitive skin

💖. Curious about this.

I'm so glad adapalene is working so well for you! I do think it is important when discussing prescription strength retinoids that you stress the "difficult, but worth it" part. Because I feel like a lot of people lose out when they start going through that tough phase, and end up quitting. I stuck with adapalene for a year or more before giving up on it. I really do wonder why tret works better for some, and adapalene better for others. But I do understand feeling like something is actually magic. I feel that way about spironolactone. It's been life changing, as hyperbolic as that may sound.

I've been using Differin since Feb , I'm normal/oily . It's powerful and me too it's the best ! I've noticed fine line reduction . I use it now everyday AM but don't take it near my eyes . I'm also using BoJ Ginseng and Retinal eye serum too ! I'm British and get Differin shipped from US . Top Tip will be just make sure your skin has dried down first . 👏😘❤🇬🇧🌈

I do a lip scrub and lip mask every night. My lips are in great shape. I am glad it is working for you. Have a great weekend Alice ❌️ ⭕️

I’ve tried incorporating this into my routine a few times, the winter was miserable I never got over the dryness and gave up. Tried again during summer/quarantine and had less dryness as my skin is usually more normal/dry but I felt like I was missing my actives and just never got to a point where I felt comfortable adding them back in.

Retinoids just do sooo much for improving texture and acne. I used Cerave Resurfacing retinol serum for a couple years and I started using Differin about 6 months ago. Typically I use it twice a week as well and my experience has been pretty similar. I've been wanting to get to 3 nights per week but I dread going through the dryness and my skin feeling tight.

greetings from sunny Mexico! yes I finally h e a break but with all of the firm. didn't bring actives. just hydration and even tho I was 3 sheets to the wind last night my Filagora eye filler cream wow. it's starting to show real promise. question. Elissa is on Apostrophe tret .5 with azalaic. I also got her zinc and then ordinary niacinamides with zinc. is there anything to calm down redness. the angry bumps. Thanks my friend and wishing you and Aura? or Auria. a lovely weekend.

I had a similar ecperience with adapalene and find that using the sandwich method was a game changer too. However, i found i had success when i was using the niod modulating glucoside but since i ran out, i start using whatever moisurizer i had on hand and started to get dry/cracking around my nose/cheeks again. So doesnt look like i can use any moisurizer to sandwich, only certain kind but still not sure what the factor that is making the difference.

I'm glad you've had this much success, but I'm curious about your selection of other products in the routine. For me I always try 1-2 actives that bring potency into a routine (like the peptides and ret/tret in the evening) but try to fill the rest with calming actives that would be helpful to protect/restore the skin barrier. If you're having sensitivity it feels like this would be even more helpful, but I'm not seeing those products. For example the CoQ-10 toner is mostly antioxidant focused, the moisturizer claims reparative functions but seems to do so with primarily coffee, tea and a bit of micro algae, and the mask mentions jujube and pomegranate extracts which feels like more antioxidants. For the record I'm not stating any of the above are bad products and you're more knowledgable than I am so they may work better, but what if you were to do a more calming routine. For example you could use this Missha double fermented mugwort first essence for calming, followed by HaruHaru or I'm From rice toners to achieve antioxidant effects along with the skin softening benefits and bit of hydrating body. You could follow this up with the buffet serum and then use Stratia Liquid Gold to provide ceramides, cholesterol and fatty acids for the skin barrier recovery. That may be sufficient without another moisturizer with the mask, but you could use Midnight Blue Calming Cream (which has azulene and centella) if needed followed by the tret and Sulwhasoo sleeping mask to lock everything in. Any of these products are replaceable, and even simply adding Missha and Stratia could be very helpful as the Stratis gives your skin the tools necessary to complete the repairs inspired by the tret. It kind of feels like the benefit of ensuring you're well nourished before a hard workout, but am I overanalyzing it or missing a component of the skin sensitivity issues? Also, I feel like double cleansing with a luxurious cleansing balm (like Elemis) actually makes my skin feel more moisturized than a single cleanse. To me this feels like it would help with sensitivity, though I admit I don't have sensitive skin to know based on personal experience. I don't cleanse in the morning though and feel like water is enough.

11:57 - That is me with SO much of skincare. I miss the most obvious of things (at least in hindsight lol).

I did order the adapalene from Laroche Posay and I was wondering if I need to simplify my routine while using this? Do I need to stop using alpha arbutin , vitamin c , aha and BHA ? Thank you ! :)

I just ordered this when it was on sale at Ulta. Is this the only retinol you use? I currently use retinol every night (PTR) and can't imagine going down to 1-2 times a week.

It's hard to get adapalene products here. So I'm using the medik8 crystal retinal 6, and it's amazing. After all the trouble I had trying to use retinol products., I constantly had red skin and would have to back off. But retinal is so much easier to use. I just find it hard to incorporate my acids now. 🌻🐸

I am wondering if next year I will try tret. I turn 52 tomorrow! But I'm afraid. I finally can use differin every other day with retinaldehyde on the off day and I don't have the flakes etc anymore. But I wonder if I would get some additional anti-aging beneft if I tried tret, even though I would have to go back to twice a week, sandwiching, etc.

I’m surprised/curious that you use the red light mask in such close proximity to the adapalene, I’ve been using mine in the mornings to give my sweet face time between stressors. But maybe the red light isn’t a stressor?

If I don't wear WR Spf , I only do a single cleanse . X

Pretty eyeshadow! What is it?

Wanted to let u know they reformulated the cicaplast balm by La Roche posay u probably got the new one that's why it's so hard to spread.

is the overnight mask an occlusive? does that increase dryness?

THE BOJ eye cream irritated my eyes. To strong maybe? Share with you think please. Am I the only one?

So I read you shouldn't use copper peptides with retinoids. Were you aware of that?

Hi..❌️⭕️

So that is how I got to be 70!! crap...