One retinol, two strengths at one price. Start at 0.25 if you have never used one, move to 0.5 when your skin is ready.

What is Alastin Renewal Retinol?

Alastin Renewal Retinol is a nightly serum in two strengths, which Alastin describes as "a lipid encapsulated retinol serum that supports smoother skin texture, improves skin tone, and reduces the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles." One pump each evening.

What is in it

Lipid encapsulated retinol is Alastin's delivery system: it improves how the retinol reaches the skin and supports the skin's natural ability to produce collagen. The encapsulation lets the retinol release gradually rather than all at once.

Silver mushroom Alastin describes as having "significantly more hydrating properties than hyaluronic acid". Oat extract calms, co-enzyme Q-10 protects the retinol's activity, and niacinamide sits high in the formula, above the retinol itself.

One thing worth clearing up about the ingredient list

You will see BHA near the end of the ingredients. In this formula that is butylated hydroxyanisole, an antioxidant preservative sitting next to BHT. It is not beta hydroxy acid, the salicylic acid family. If you have been told not to use a BHA exfoliant on the same night as a retinol, that advice does not apply to this ingredient.

Renewal Retinol specifications

Alastin Renewal Retinol reviews

• Five of our eight reviewers name the professional who sent them. Two dermatologists, a Botox nurse practitioner, a plastic surgeon, and one who recommends it to her own patients.
• Beginners do well on it. One describes a visible change in fine lines at two to three weeks and full-face nightly use after a month.
• Tingling early on, then nothing. One buyer reports tingling for the first few applications that stopped after a few uses.
• Sensitive and rosacea-prone skin has tolerated it. One reviewer reports no dryness, redness or flaking. Another says her rosacea-prone skin tolerates it perfectly. Alastin formulates for oily, combination and dry and does not claim sensitive, so this is buyer experience, not a brand claim.
• People stay on it. One reviewer is four years in, another has been consistent since her fifties.

Which strength should you buy?

Both cost the same, so pick on tolerance. New to retinol, or restarting after a break, take 0.25. Already using one comfortably several nights a week, take 0.5. You can move up later.

It sits alongside the rest of Alastin. For a peptide serum to alternate with on non-retinol nights, that is Alastin Restorative Skin Complex, and around professional treatments, Regenerating Skin Nectar.